In the 1960s, rapid growth began to fill in the blank spaces on the Palo Alto map. Unincorporated areas and orchards still dotted the map. Prune and apricot orchards became suburban streets. The size and expertise of public safety services has evolved along with this constant growth in population. The city was among the first in Santa Clara County to offer advanced life support (ALS) paramedic-level (EMT-P) ambulance service. In an arrangement predating countywide paramedic service, Palo Alto Fire operates two paramedic ambulances which are theoretically shared with county EMS assets. The Palo Alto Fire Department is currently the only fire department in Santa Clara County that routinely transports patients. American Medical Response holds the Santa Clara County 911 contract and provides transportation in other cities. Enhanced 9-1-1 arrived in about 1980 and included the then-new ability to report emergencies from coin telephones without using a coin.

Before the 1980s, Palo Alto police shared a single radio channel with Atherton and Menlo Park, (154.950 MHz). While located in Santa Clara County, in one sense, the police had closer ties to San Mateo County because of this arrangement. Until the 1970s, a Motorola FMTRU-series DC-remote base — possibly a backup system — was housed at EOC on Newell Rd. The police station was housed in a stone building (still) marked Police Court at 450 Bryant St. The building is now a senior citizens center. In the late 1970s, FCC regulations changed to allow sharing of television frequencies in major US metropolitan areas. About 1980, the city built their own voted repeater system on TV-sharing frequencies for Police. Fire systems evolved from stand-alone base stations to a voted modern, system using DTMF station ringdowns. The current city systems are models of good level discipline. In modern times, police have enjoyed a reputation for professionalism and quick response times. Another facet of the Police Department involves one officer convicted of groping a woman who was handcuffed in his patrol car and an incident where officers were alleged to have coerced a false confession from an innocent person during an investigation of the rape of an elderly woman. In modern times, police work out of the City Hall high rise.

In modern times, the larger population and difficult target hazards of the campus are addressed by the resources of Palo Alto Fire, which handles daily calls for service. Stanford University Department of Public Safety ran their own fire department and dispatched their own police calls until about 1980. Prior to that time, Stanford Department of Public Safety Sheriff's Deputies used County Frequency 7 (154.740 MHz). The University's radio equipment had been upgraded after protests against the Vietnam war tested readiness and limitations of the agency in the 1960s. At the time, the channel (Frequency 7) was also shared primary dispatch for Los Altos and Mountain View police. Under the county radio identifier prefix system in use at the time, Stanford units were identified by a prefix 26. A typical Stanford DPS patrol unit might identify as twenty-six-ess-eight (26S8), for example. The University's Frequency 7 police base station had a call sign of KBF249. In the early 1980s, Stanford turned their dispatching for fire and police over to the City of Palo Alto. Before the early 1980s, Stanford Fire units were dispatched by university staff on County Frequency 8 (154.400 MHz) and used identifiers including Engine 95 and Rescue 95. Fire equipment ran calls out of the station that is today identified as Palo Alto Station 6: a.k.a. 711 Serra Street or Quad 9 Building 300. The need for a new fire station may have partly been dictated by needs for a large ladder truck because of the arrival of Escondido Village high rise buildings. Prior to the construction of this station, fire units worked out of a building that is now marked, "Old Fire Truck House." The old fire station is located on Santa Teresa Street near Tressider Memorial Union: Quad 2 Building 620.

Along the 4000-block of El Camino Real in Palo Alto exists a community built in the late 1940s known as Barron Park. Barron Park remained outside the city limits until a 1970s zeal for annexation brought it into the city. As an unincorporated area, police services were handled by the Santa Clara County Sheriff's Department. Fire services were the domain of the volunteer Barron Park Fire District, (BPFD). Based on the age of their equipment, the Barron Park subdivision is believed to have been built in 1949. The district housed two firefighting vehicles in a steel shed (the fire station) behind Lanai Florist at 4050 El Camino Real. The shed still stands today. Only one fire unit had a radio: a 1949 GMC/FMC pickup marked, "Barron Park Fire District Number Two," and used the radio callsign, "High Pressure 90." A second unit, a 1949 White/Van Pelt, was not radio equipped. In practice, it was referred to on the radio as, "The Big One." As it had no official identifier, volunteers would tell county fire dispatch over the radio, "The Big One is also responding." Barron Park Fire operated its radios on the county-dispatched primary fire channel then referred to as Frequency 2. The department was self-dispatched. The department's seven-digit emergency number rang at the BPFD Chief's house. If the call was a fire, the Chief pulled an exclusion key on the emergency line telephone and dialed zero. This grounded one conductor of the seven-digit emergency number's phone line and actuated a relay which turned on a Federal-brand, air-raid style siren at the site where the firefighting vehicles were parked. As the siren would cycle through its repartee, all available volunteers would go to the station. At the station, the first to arrive would lift the receiver of an extension of the seven digit emergency phone and the Chief would tell them what the call was. The first volunteer would write the call on a blackboard so late arrivals could know the location of the event. Typical of fire calls in any area, a large fire will generate many reports. The telephone technology used by many volunteer fire departments at the time -- including BPFD -- used an electromechanical device called a line turret. This was a predecessor to modern conference calls and call waiting. After the Chief answered the first call, if a second person called the seven-digit emergency number to report a fire, the second caller would be bridged onto the first call. This allowed a single, rotary-dial telephone to answer multiple lines. In a typical volunteer department, emergency phones would be wired to the homes of several volunteers and they would take turns maintaining watch over the phone. It also led to confusion because the second caller might get conferenced with an earlier caller who was halfway through the process of reporting a fire. When Barron Park was annexed to Palo Alto about 1979, The Big One was donated to San Jose City College Fire Academy program where it was subsequently scrapped. High Pressure 90 was sold at auction and still resides in the area of Barron Park. Today the area receives city services and is part of the city of Palo Alto.