Volunteer Fire Departments by State: Career vs Volunteer Counts From the Final 2026 Registry File

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Volunteer fire departments by state: the final registry count

All-volunteer departments are the majority of registered departments in 38 of 51 jurisdictions. The 13 exceptions are the three Pacific Coast states, Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Hawaii, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Delaware and the District of Columbia.

We downloaded the registry's national file from the USFA download page on 2026-10-27 and counted all 27,117 rows by headquarters state and by the registry's own department type field. The total matches the 27,117 departments on USFA's Quick Facts page. Registration is voluntary, so every count below is a floor for the true number of departments.

Department type: USFA uses NFPA definitions: an all-career department has 100% career firefighters, a mostly career department 51% to 99%, a mostly volunteer department 1% to 50%, and an all-volunteer department none. Mostly volunteer and mostly career departments are often called combination departments.

The largest registered counts are in Pennsylvania (1,771), New York (1,649), Texas (1,530), Ohio (1,148), Illinois (1,107) and North Carolina (1,089). In Pennsylvania 1,589 departments and in New York 1,497 departments are all-volunteer (June 2026 file).

Delaware is a reminder that the all-volunteer share is not the whole picture. Only 42.4% of Delaware's 59 registered departments are all-volunteer, but another 33 are mostly volunteer, and volunteers make up 85.5% of the state's registered firefighters (see the volunteer reliance index).

Career vs volunteer firefighters: a volunteer reliance index for every state

Counting firefighters instead of departments lowers the volunteer share from 69.9% to 52.6%. Volunteers are a majority of registered firefighters in 28 of 51 jurisdictions.

Volunteer reliance index: Volunteer firefighters divided by all active firefighters (career, volunteer and paid-per-call) reported by a state's registered departments. It is our derived measure; the registry publishes the inputs but not the ratio by state.

The index runs from 90.2% in South Dakota, 89.0% in Pennsylvania and 88.4% in West Virginia to 9.1% in Florida, 7.0% in Massachusetts and 6.2% in Hawaii. New York's registered departments list 80,346 volunteer firefighters, the most of any state, against 17,593 career firefighters (June 2026 file).

Paid-per-call firefighters change the reading in several Midwestern and New England states. Michigan's registered departments list 14,916 paid-per-call firefighters against 7,343 career and 3,920 volunteer; Wisconsin lists 10,875, Minnesota 9,086 and Maine 5,059. These members are paid when they respond but are not full-time staff, so a low volunteer index in Michigan (15.0%) does not mean a mostly career workforce.

Seven in ten departments, under half the firefighters

All-volunteer departments are numerous but small. All-career departments are few but large, and they employ most of the country's registered career firefighters.

All-volunteer departments average 27.3 active firefighters each and all-career departments 101.4 (June 2026 file). Two in three registered departments (67.6%) run a single station.

The latest NFPA U.S. Fire Department Profile we found, for 2020, reports the same pattern from its own survey: all-career or mostly career departments were 18% of an estimated 29,452 departments but protected 70% of the U.S. population, and 95% of volunteer firefighters served departments protecting fewer than 25,000 people (NFPA). We cite those figures as context only; NFPA's estimates and the registry counts use different methods.

Stations and firefighters per resident, state by state

North Dakota, Wyoming, Arkansas, Alaska and Vermont report the most stations per resident; Florida, Arizona, Texas and California are among the fewest. The ratios describe infrastructure and rosters, not a service standard.

Registered departments in the 50 states and DC report 52,447 stations, or 15.3 per 100,000 residents and one station per 6,517 residents. North Dakota (48.0), Wyoming (44.8) and Arkansas (40.7) report the most stations per 100,000; Florida (7.5) and Hawaii (8.0) report the fewest among the states.

Firefighters per 1,000 residents run from 11.08 in North Dakota and 8.48 in South Dakota to 1.50 in California and Arizona and 1.49 in Florida. Residents per career firefighter run from 463 in the District of Columbia and 492 in Rhode Island to 2,248 in Pennsylvania, 2,330 in Delaware and 2,467 in Minnesota, states where volunteer or paid-per-call members carry much of the work.

How complete the registry is, and what replaced it

The registry covers an estimated 91% of U.S. departments, and its final file is now fixed. Its successor listing, NERIS, already shows 13.2% more entities, with almost the same volunteer share.

USFA estimates that the registry lists 91% of U.S. fire departments. Against NFPA's 2020 estimate of 29,452 departments, the 27,117 registered departments equal 92.1%. USFA launched the list in 2001 as the National Fire Department Census, and registrations grew from about 16,000 to over 27,000 by 2016 (USFA).

The registry home page now states that it no longer takes new registrations or updates and that downloads reflect records added or changed before June 2026, pointing users to the NERIS department search run with the Fire Safety Research Institute (USFA; USFA NERIS). That makes the June 2026 file the registry's last snapshot.

Florida's registered count fell from 462 in January 2024 to 389 in the June 2026 file, a 15.8% drop. Pennsylvania (-33), Oregon (-20), Missouri (-19) and New York (-11) also fell, while West Virginia rose by 27. In a voluntary list these changes reflect registrations, removals and record clean-up as well as mergers; they are not a count of departments opening or closing.

We read every record in the public NERIS department search on 2026-10-27: 30,699 entities, 30,671 of them in the 50 states and DC. That is 13.2% more than the registry's final file, and NERIS lists more entities than the registry in 43 of 51 jurisdictions. The widest gap is Mississippi (725 NERIS entities vs 419 registered departments); Nevada is the one notable case in the other direction (72 vs 88).

NERIS types departments as career, combination or volunteer, and 5,173 entities have no type yet. Among typed entities in the 50 states and DC, 69.8% are volunteer, against 69.9% all-volunteer departments in the registry file. The two lists were built separately, so the matching share is a useful check that the registry's staffing mix still holds. Of the NERIS records, 21,324 were last modified in 2026.

Checking registry career counts against BLS payroll data

Registry career counts come close to BLS paid-job estimates in most states, which supports using the registry for state comparisons. The gaps are largest where paid-per-call rosters are large.

BLS estimates 342,810 firefighter jobs and 98,420 fire supervisor jobs in the 48 jurisdictions where both May 2025 cells are published. Registered departments in those jurisdictions list 366,718 career firefighters, a ratio of 0.83.

The lowest ratios are in Minnesota (0.34), Maine (0.50), North Carolina (0.50) and Wisconsin (0.51), all states with large paid-per-call rosters in the registry. BLS counts any paid job, including part-time and on-call pay, while the registry places those members in a separate paid-per-call column. California (1.12) and Maryland (1.18) list more registry career firefighters than BLS jobs; Maryland is one of the four states where USFA removes double registrations of county departments and their affiliates, which the download does not flag.

What the staffing model means for building owners and managers

Whether a local department is career or volunteer does not by itself decide who inspects a building. State law assigns inspection duties, and only about a third of registered departments report doing inspections at all.

USFA's registry summary reports that 35.3% of registered departments provide fire inspection or code enforcement and 65.4% provide fire and injury prevention or public education (last updated June 11, 2026). The download does not include these service fields by department, so they cannot be mapped by state.

• Florida: each county, municipality and special district with firesafety enforcement responsibilities must employ or contract with a firesafety inspector, and those inspections must be done by a person certified as meeting State Fire Marshal training requirements, which include a firesafety inspector program of at least 200 hours or equivalent training from another state (Fla. Stat. 633.216, 2026 Florida Statutes). See Florida fire inspection rules.
• Texas: a county fire marshal may inspect structures for fire or life safety hazards and must inspect when called on, but may not enforce orders inside a municipality without an interlocal agreement (Tex. Local Gov't Code 352.016 and 352.019). See Texas fire inspection rules.
• North Carolina: the local inspection department may make periodic inspections for hazardous conditions, subject to the governing board's direction (G.S. 160D-1117). See North Carolina fire inspection rules.

For other states, including New York and Georgia, our state pages and the requirement finder summarize which inspections apply to a building type. Pay for the people who do this work is covered in our fire inspector salary by state report.

Federal staffing support also reaches volunteer departments directly: FEMA's SAFER grants fund fire departments and volunteer firefighter interest organizations to increase or maintain the number of trained front line firefighters (FEMA).

Key findings

1. The USFA National Fire Department Registry file (last updated June 11, 2026) lists 27,117 fire departments in the U.S. and its territories, matching USFA's own Quick Facts total.^[1][2]
2. Of those 27,117 departments, 18,952 (69.9%) are all-volunteer, 4,166 (15.4%) mostly volunteer, 1,393 (5.1%) mostly career and 2,606 (9.6%) all-career, using the registry's department type field (June 2026 file).^[1]
3. Registered departments report 1,068,023 active firefighters: 372,343 career, 561,886 volunteer and 133,794 paid-per-call (June 2026 file, all rows).^[1]
4. Volunteers are 52.6% of registered active firefighters nationally (June 2026 file), the same share USFA reported in January 2024.^[1][5]
5. South Dakota has the highest volunteer reliance index at 90.2%, followed by Pennsylvania (89.0%) and West Virginia (88.4%) (June 2026 registry file).^[1]
6. Florida (9.1%), Massachusetts (7.0%) and Hawaii (6.2%) have the lowest volunteer reliance among the states; the District of Columbia reports no volunteer firefighters (June 2026 registry file).^[1]
7. Nebraska has the highest all-volunteer share of registered departments at 92.3%, followed by North Dakota (92.0%) and South Dakota (91.8%) (June 2026 registry file).^[1]
8. Pennsylvania has the most registered departments (1,771), followed by New York (1,649) and Texas (1,530) (June 2026 registry file).^[1]
9. The 50 states and DC have 15.3 registered fire stations per 100,000 residents, ranging from 48.0 in North Dakota to 7.5 in Florida among the states (registry June 2026; population July 1, 2025).^[1][6]
10. The 50 states and DC have 3.12 registered active firefighters per 1,000 residents, ranging from 11.08 in North Dakota to 1.49 in Florida (registry June 2026; population July 1, 2025).^[1][6]
11. There are 924 residents per registered career firefighter in the 50 states and DC, from 463 in the District of Columbia to 2,467 in Minnesota (registry June 2026; population July 1, 2025).^[1][6]
12. All-career departments are 9.6% of registered departments but employ 71.0% of registered career firefighters and operate 23.9% of stations (June 2026 file).^[1]
13. In the 48 jurisdictions where BLS publishes both cells, registry career firefighters (366,718) equal 0.83 of BLS paid firefighter and supervisor jobs (441,230) for May 2025.^[1][7]
14. Nationally, 35.3% of registered departments report providing fire inspection or code enforcement services, according to USFA's registry summary (last updated June 11, 2026).^[2]
15. The NERIS department search, the registry's successor, listed 30,671 entities in the 50 states and DC on 2026-10-27, 13.2% more than the registry file; 69.8% of typed NERIS entities are volunteer, against 69.9% in the registry.^[9][1]

Summary for decision makers

• The final USFA registry file lists 27,117 fire departments, which USFA estimates is 91% of all U.S. departments; 27,102 are in the 50 states and DC.
• All-volunteer departments are the majority of registered departments in 38 of 51 jurisdictions, and 69.9% of departments nationally.
• Counting people instead of departments changes the picture: volunteers are 52.6% of the 1,068,023 registered active firefighters, and a majority in 28 of 51 jurisdictions.
• All-career departments are 9.6% of departments but hold 23.9% of stations and 71.0% of all registered career firefighters.
• Per resident, North Dakota leads: it reports 48.0 stations per 100,000 residents and 11.08 firefighters per 1,000, against 15.3 and 3.12 for the 50 states and DC.
• Registry career counts equal 0.83 of BLS paid firefighter and supervisor jobs in the 48 jurisdictions BLS publishes, so the registry undercounts paid staff in some states, most where paid-per-call rosters are large.
• The registry stopped accepting registrations and updates in June 2026; between January 2024 and the final file, the 50-state and DC count fell by 51 departments, led by Florida (-73).
• The successor NERIS listing (October 2026) shows 13.2% more entities than the registry in the 50 states and DC, but nearly the same volunteer share: 69.8% of typed entities.

Frequently asked questions

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Methodology

Selection: the primary dataset is the USFA National Fire Department Registry national download (usfa-registry-national.csv), fetched from https://apps.usfa.fema.gov/registry/api/download/national on 2026-10-27. USFA's Quick Facts page shows the registry was last updated June 11, 2026, and the registry home page states it no longer accepts registrations or updates. We used it because it is the only department-level public file with department type, stations and firefighter counts for every state. Population is the Census Bureau Vintage 2025 state estimate for July 1, 2025. Paid firefighter employment is BLS OEWS May 2025 (occupations 33-2011 and 33-1021).

Counting rules: every row is counted once by its headquarters state and by the registry's Dept Type field as published, including 82 departments that reported zero firefighters. USFA's own Quick Facts exclude 89 departments without personnel counts, so its type shares (69.8% volunteer) differ slightly from ours (69.9%). Territory rows (15 departments in Puerto Rico, Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands) are in national totals but not in state rankings.

Conflicts: our raw sums (52,572 stations; 372,343 career, 561,886 volunteer and 133,794 paid-per-call firefighters) are slightly higher than USFA's published totals (52,341 stations; 370,891, 550,782 and 133,707) because USFA removes double registrations of county departments and their affiliates in Georgia, Maryland, Nevada and Virginia. The download does not flag those records, so state figures for those four states may be overstated; we report the raw counts and flag the states in table notes. NFPA's 2020 profile figures are survey estimates with a different scope (municipal departments only for career firefighters) and are shown as context, never mixed into our calculations.

NERIS comparison: we read all 307 pages (100 records each) of the public NERIS department search at https://neris.fsri.org/departments on 2026-10-27 with a 1.5-second pause between requests, saved each page unmodified (gzipped) in raw/neris_pages/, and counted records by state and department type (scripts/fetch_neris.py, scripts/analyze_neris.py). No duplicate NERIS IDs were found. NERIS is used only as a cross-check; all state rankings use the registry file.

Derived metrics: volunteer reliance index, stations per 100,000 residents, firefighters per 1,000 residents, residents per career firefighter, departments per 100,000 residents, department-vs-people shares by type, the registry-to-BLS ratio and registry coverage. Formulas, inputs and results are in derived_metrics.csv and the table CSVs; scripts/analyze_registry.py reproduces every table from the raw files.

Limitations: registration is voluntary and self-reported, and USFA estimates 91% coverage, so all counts are a floor. Volunteer rosters measure membership, not on-duty staffing or response capacity. The registry's specialized-services answers (including fire inspection) are published only as national percentages. Changes between January 2024 and June 2026 reflect a voluntary list's additions and removals, not openings or closures.

Source copies: every page was fetched directly from its publisher without proxies. Three official pages could not be fetched directly or render only in a browser (ncleg.gov returns 403; the Texas statutes site and FEMA's SAFER page serve a script shell or 403), so we cite Internet Archive captures of the official pages: G.S. 160D-1117 (2026-01-03), Texas Local Government Code Chapter 352 (2025-12-11) and FEMA SAFER (2026-10-13). Copies are in raw/pages/.

Legal notice: the statute summaries in this report describe who may inspect buildings in three states as of the dates shown. They are not legal advice; check the current law and your local fire official for requirements that apply to a specific building.

Last updated 2026-10-27. Because the registry is closed, this report will be rechecked when USFA or NERIS publishes a new department-level file.

This report presents published data with its limitations. It is not legal, engineering, financial or investment advice. Requirements depend on the code edition your state and local fire marshal have adopted; confirm with your authority having jurisdiction.

Sources, ranked by quality

Tier 1: primary and official sources (13)

• [1] U.S. Fire Administration (FEMA). National Fire Department Registry, national download file (usfa-registry-national.csv). Registry records added or changed before June 2026; registry last updated 2026-06-11. Accessed 2026-10-27.
• [2] U.S. Fire Administration (FEMA). National Fire Department Registry Quick Facts. Registry last updated 2026-06-11. Accessed 2026-10-27.
• [3] U.S. Fire Administration (FEMA). National Fire Department Registry (home page notice). Notice live 2026-10-27. Accessed 2026-10-27.
• [4] U.S. Fire Administration (FEMA). About the National Fire Department Registry. 2001 to 2016 history. Accessed 2026-10-27.
• [5] U.S. Fire Administration (FEMA). National Fire Department Registry Summary, January 2024. January 2024. Accessed 2026-10-27.
• [6] U.S. Census Bureau. Annual Estimates of the Resident Population for the States, Vintage 2025 (NST-EST2025-ALLDATA). July 1, 2025 estimates (Vintage 2025). Accessed 2026-10-27.
• [7] U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025 state estimates. May 2025. Accessed 2026-10-27.
• [9] Fire Safety Research Institute for USFA (NERIS). NERIS National Fire Department and Emergency Services Search Tool. Listing read 2026-10-27 (all 307 pages, 100 records per page). Accessed 2026-10-27.
• [10] U.S. Fire Administration (FEMA). National Emergency Response Information System (NERIS). Page dated 2026-08-27. Accessed 2026-10-27.
• [11] Florida Legislature. Florida Statutes s. 633.216, Inspection of buildings and equipment. 2026 Florida Statutes. Accessed 2026-10-27.
• [12] Texas Legislature. Texas Local Government Code, Chapter 352, County Fire Protection (Internet Archive capture of statutes.capitol.texas.gov, 2025-12-11). Statute text as captured 2025-12-11. Accessed 2026-10-27.
• [13] North Carolina General Assembly. North Carolina General Statutes s. 160D-1117, Periodic inspections (Internet Archive capture of ncleg.gov, 2026-01-03). Statute text as captured 2026-01-03. Accessed 2026-10-27.
• [14] FEMA. Staffing for Adequate Fire and Emergency Response (SAFER) grants (Internet Archive capture, 2026-10-13). Program page as captured 2026-10-13. Accessed 2026-10-27.

Tier 2: trade bodies, market research, company data (1)

• [8] National Fire Protection Association. U.S. Fire Department Profile (2020 data). 2020 (published 2022). Accessed 2026-10-27.

Tier 3: journalism and expert commentary (2)

• [15] FireRescue1. NFPA reports on number of firefighters, departments. 2013 article. Accessed 2026-10-27.
• [16] Firehouse Magazine. 2015 Volunteer Run Survey. 2015 survey. Accessed 2026-10-27.