Top 10 US States by Volunteer Fire Department Share
Which US states rely most on volunteer fire departments. State-level share of departments that are primarily volunteer, from the live PlainFireData state_stats table built on HIFLD and USFA data.
Research period:
Research question
Which US states depend most heavily on volunteer fire departments, and how does the volunteer share track with population density and rural geography?
Methodology
This ranking is generated automatically from the U.S. Fire Administration's published dataset and reflects the share of volunteer fire departments for each entity as most recently reported. The page updates whenever we refresh our copy of the source data, so the numbers always match the latest release we have ingested.
Coverage and exclusions: entities with no reported value for this metric are left out of the ranking rather than shown as zero, since a missing figure is not the same as an actual zero. U.S. Fire Administration occasionally withholds a value for confidentiality, small-sample, or quality-control reasons, and those withheld entries are excluded the same way.
Data provenance: U.S. Fire Administration publishes this dataset on its own release schedule, and we pull each new release as it becomes publicly available. If a later release revises a prior figure, the revised number will appear here automatically the next time we refresh our copy, no part of this page is hand-edited.
Editorial governance: PlainFireData maintains an editorial standards process covering how rankings are built, how outliers are handled, and how corrections are processed if an entity disputes a figure attributed to it. A named editor reviews this page before publication, shown in the byline above. Corrections and clarifications can be requested through the contact channels linked in the site footer.
Transparency: every number on this page traces back to a specific U.S. Fire Administration source record, linked from the entity pages reachable from this ranking. See our methodology page for the full source list, update cadence, and how each figure is derived.
See the methodology page for the full source list, update cadence, and how each figure is derived.
Top 10 US States by Total Fire Department Personnel
Live data, updated automatically whenever we refresh our copy of the source
The ranked top 10
Every row below reflects the most recent data we have on file. Refresh the page after we update our copy of the source to see the latest values.
| # | State | Departments | Volunteer share | Career depts | Volunteer depts |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | North Dakota | 338 | 71.6% | 8 | 242 |
| 2 | Arkansas | 1,168 | 71.1% | 30 | 831 |
| 3 | West Virginia | 511 | 70.3% | 16 | 359 |
| 4 | Iowa | 810 | 70.1% | 24 | 568 |
| 5 | Delaware | 80 | 70.0% | 1 | 56 |
| 6 | South Dakota | 365 | 69.0% | 9 | 252 |
| 7 | Minnesota | 883 | 68.2% | 16 | 602 |
| 8 | Wisconsin | 961 | 67.5% | 52 | 649 |
| 9 | Pennsylvania | 2,427 | 67.0% | 40 | 1,627 |
| 10 | Virginia | 766 | 66.8% | 46 | 512 |
Source: U.S. Fire Administration, NFIRS National Fire Department Registry. Values reflect our most recent copy of the source data. U.S. Fire Administration, NFIRS National Fire Department Registry. Values reflect our most recent copy of the source data.
Findings
Top entity in the ranking
The top-ranked record in this dataset is North Dakota, with a value of 71.6% on the volunteer-share column. The full top-10 set is rendered in the table above. Every value comes directly from the current dataset; no number is hardcoded into this page. When the U.S. Fire Administration publishes a revision, the ranking and the prose around it update the next time we refresh our copy of the data.
Distribution shape
The gap between the top-ranked record (71.6%) and the 10th-ranked record (66.8%) characterizes how concentrated the top of the distribution is. Where the top value is many multiples of the median value of the visible set, the population is highly concentrated, a small number of entities accumulate the bulk of the measured quantity. Where the top and bottom of the visible set are close together, the distribution is relatively flat across the top end. The full distribution beyond this top-10 cut is summarized in the aggregate context section below and explored in the linked entity profiles.
Aggregate context
Across the full population behind this ranking, here are the summary statistics: how many records exist in total, the sum of the ranking metric across all qualifying records, and the mean per-record value. The methodology page documents the exact filter applied (records with null or zero values on the ranking metric are excluded). This aggregate row is computed from the same dataset that powers the ranking above.
Source provenance
The records in this ranking originate from U.S. Fire Administration, specifically the NFIRS National Fire Department Registry. PlainFireData ingests the source vintage published by the agency and republishes it here in a clear, browsable format. Every page reflects our most recent copy of the data, there is no stale cached export, and an update from the source agency propagates to this page within hours. The methodology page documents the source URL, the vintage date, and how each figure is derived.
Why this ranking matters
Rankings like this one let a reader scan a population quickly and identify outliers, concentrations, and patterns that warrant deeper investigation. The detail pages linked from each entity in the table above give the full per-entity context: time-series history where available, related metrics from adjacent tables, and links onward to the underlying source records. The methodology page explains how an entity earns inclusion in the dataset and how the ranking column is computed at the source.
What this analysis cannot tell us
NFIRS participation is voluntary at the department level, coverage rates vary across states and undercount the long tail of small volunteer departments. State personnel totals aggregate career, volunteer, and combination department staffing, but the underlying definition of personnel varies by department type (a volunteer roster member may train and respond at very different intensity than a career firefighter). State-level rollups do not capture multi-state mutual-aid arrangements that move resources across boundaries during major incidents. Personnel counts reflect roster size at the time of reporting and do not measure actual on-duty staffing or response capacity. Trends across years can reflect changes in NFIRS reporting compliance rather than actual workforce changes.
Secondary cut from the same source
Top 10 states by total fire-service personnel, the volume contrast to the volunteer-share ranking above
Sources
- USFA National Fire Department Registry - https://apps.usfa.fema.gov/registry/
- NFIRS, National Fire Incident Reporting System - https://www.usfa.fema.gov/nfirs/