It is equipped with a Wilburt 6,000-watt lighttower powered by a WINCO 25,000-watt generator. The unit has a six-bottle high pressure cascade system.

Squad 1 carries a full complement of Amkus rescue tools, cribbing and all the equipment necessary for vehicle rescue and extrication as well as firefighting.

As a Metro Support and Mass Casualty Unit, it also carried specialized equipment for the Metro subway system in the Washington, DC area. It also carries rope rescue equipment, mass casualty EMS pods, additional 60-minute breathing apparatus in cases in a specialized compartment and other specialized equipment.

About one-fourth of the units average 700-annual responses are to neighboring Montgomery County, where it is automatically dispatched on all personal injury accidents and structure fire assignments in most of Takoma Park on the initial alarm.

As a rescue squad, the unit responds to about 800 calls annually. As a MSU, the unit is automatically dispatched to all: second-alarm fires on the north side of Prince George's County; all Level III hazardous materials incidents; and all mass casualty incidents.

Squad/MSU-1 is able to transmit on all Washington Metropolitan Area radio frequencies.

Just a few months after being placed in service in 1996 as a full squad (after a prelimary trial period while still only an MSU), Squad 1 was the second-due heavy rescue unit to the Amtrak-MARC train crash in Silver Spring that killed 11 people.

The unit also has a 20,000-lb. winch on the rear. The body is made of aluminum and the unit is painted red with a white stripe and white scotchlite. The initial cost of the unit was about $450,000.