About PlainFireData, Fire Department Intelligence from Federal Data

Our Mission

PlainFireData exists because every community deserves transparent information about the fire protection serving its residents. Federal agencies collect detailed data on fire departments, fire statistics, and grant funding, but this information is scattered across multiple databases in formats that require technical expertise to access.

We believe fire protection data belongs to the communities it describes. PlainFireData brings together HIFLD station data, USFA national fire statistics, and FEMA grant records into searchable department profiles, state comparisons, and county coverage maps that anyone can use. Whether you are a homeowner evaluating fire protection when choosing where to live, a researcher studying fire service capacity, or a policymaker identifying coverage gaps, PlainFireData provides the data in an accessible format.

PlainFireData provides free access to federal fire department data, profiles of 38,518 departments across all 50 states + DC, state-level fire safety statistics, fire cause breakdowns, and county-level coverage maps. All data comes from official US government sources: HIFLD (DHS/CISA), USFA (FEMA), and FEMA OpenFEMA.

Our Data Sources

All data comes from federal open-data programs:

HIFLD Fire Stations (DHS/CISA): Station-level data for over 53,000 fire stations, location, personnel counts, truck inventory, EMS designation, and FDID identifiers. Used to build department profiles.
USFA National Fire Statistics: State-level fire data from the US Fire Administration, annual fires, fire deaths, injuries, and property loss by state.
FEMA Assistance to Firefighters Grants (OpenFEMA): Federal grant awards to fire departments, funding amounts, program types, and award history.
U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates: State population figures used only to compute department-density and per-capita context on state comparison views.

Methodology

HIFLD data contains one record per fire station, with multiple stations sharing the same Fire Department Identification Number (FDID). We aggregate stations to department profiles using the FDID + state composite key, applying name normalization (stripping station numbers from department names) and selecting the highest available values for personnel and equipment. No data is fabricated, interpolated, or editionalized.

State fire statistics from USFA are hardcoded from published annual reports, which are not available as downloadable datasets from federal APIs.

Data Currency

HIFLD station data is updated periodically by DHS/CISA. USFA state statistics reflect the most recent full year of national fire reporting. We refresh our database when updated federal datasets are released.

Coverage Limitations

Not all fire departments appear in HIFLD data. Smaller volunteer departments may not report to the federal system. Absence from PlainFireData does not mean a community lacks fire protection, it means that department does not appear in the federal station registry. Always contact your local fire department for authoritative local information.

Important Disclaimer

This site is for informational purposes only. Data may not reflect current department staffing or equipment. Do not rely solely on this data for emergency planning or safety decisions. Always follow guidance from local authorities and emergency services. In an emergency, call 911.

Not Affiliated

PlainFireData is not affiliated with DHS, CISA, USFA, FEMA, or any government agency. We are an independent data portal that presents public federal information in a more accessible format.

How We Process Fire Department Data

PlainFireData draws from two federal sources: the Homeland Infrastructure Foundation-Level Data (HIFLD) fire station database, which provides locations and department details for over 38,000 fire departments nationwide, and the U.S. Fire Administration state-level statistics covering firefighter counts, fire incidents, and loss data.

We organize this data by county and state so residents can see the departments serving their area along with staffing and response capacity context. Department-level details reflect HIFLD records as published. State fire loss statistics come from USFA reports and are presented without normalization or ranking, we show the numbers and let readers draw their own conclusions about local fire protection capacity.

Editorial Standards

The department, state, and county profiles on PlainFireData are generated by a continuous editorial pipeline that renders every page directly from official federal source data, HIFLD, USFA/NFIRS, FEMA, NIFC, NWCG, and related fire-data programs, so coverage is consistent across all 38,518 departments. The editorial work goes into the pipeline: how data is sourced, joined, and presented, the methodology that governs it, and the written guides and research, not into hand-authoring tens of thousands of near-identical profiles. The PlainFireData editorial team, , is responsible for that pipeline, the editorial standards and methodology, and corrections. Our written guides and research analyses are drafted and reviewed before publication.

We do not accept payment, sponsorship, or promoted placement from government agencies, fire service organizations, or any covered entity. Our only revenue source is contextual display advertising served by Google AdSense, advertisers do not influence which entities we cover or how we present data, and they do not receive preferential placement.

Every statistic on a department, county, or state page is provenance-tagged to its source dataset (HIFLD, USFA, FEMA AFG, or NIFC), and every research page links to our methodology page where the SQL aggregation logic is documented.

Editorial Team

PlainFireData is published by PlainFireData Editorial, a small independent team that builds public-data portals so that government fire-service records remain accessible to the people they describe. Our editorial work on PlainFireData is led by editors with backgrounds in public-safety data analysis, geographic-information systems, and emergency-services research, disciplines that combine to vet what HIFLD, USFA, FEMA, NIFC, and NWCG publish, surface their limitations, and translate technical taxonomies (HIFLD station registries, USFA NFIRS reporting, FEMA AFG grant data, NWCG wildfire incident codes) into language a department chief, journalist, or policy researcher can actually use.

We do not employ practicing firefighters and do not publish original fire-suppression or operational guidance. Instead, our editorial standard is verification, citation, and transparency: every data field we surface is traceable to a HIFLD, USFA, FEMA, or NIFC publication, every caveat (lag time, scope exclusions, voluntary-reporting fields) is disclosed at the page level, and every methodology decision is documented at /methodology. When source data has known shortcomings, for example, USFA NFIRS data is voluntarily reported and coverage varies by state, we say so on the page where the data appears, not buried in a footer.

Editorial questions, fact corrections, and source-attribution issues should go to hello@plainfiredata.com. We are accountable for what we publish: every correction we make is reflected in the next data refresh, and our update schedule is documented at the top of this page so readers can see how recent the underlying figures are. PlainFireData does not accept paid placement, sponsored listings, or any incentive that would compromise the neutrality of how departments and incidents appear on the site.

Contact

Questions, corrections, or feedback? Email us at hello@plainfiredata.com.

We welcome:

Questions about data sources or methodology
Reports of missing departments or incorrect station data
Suggestions for additional features or data dimensions
Media and research inquiries

PlainFireData is an independent, public-interest data project. We build free, plain-language tools that make official fire-service data easy to explore.