- Author
- Karter, M. J., Jr.
- Title
- U.S. Fire Department Profile Through 2001.
- Coporate
- National Fire Protection Assoc., Quincy, MA
- Distribution
- AVAILABLE FROM: NFPA One Stop Data Shop, 1 Batterymarch Park, P.O. Box 9101, Quincy, MA 02269-9101. Telephone: 617-984-7540, Fax: 617-984-7478, Email: [email protected]. Website: http://www.nfpa.org
- Keywords
- fire departments | fire fighters | fire statistics | surveys
- Identifiers
- career fire fighters; volunteer fire fighters
- Abstract
- There were approximately 1,108,250 firefighters in the U.S. in 2002, according to estimates based on NFPA's 2002 National Fire Experience Survey (see Table 1). This is an increase of 2.8% from a year ago. Career firefighters include full-time (career) uniformed firefighters regardless of assignments, e.g., suppression, prevention/inspection, administrative. Career firefighters included here work for a public municipal fire department; they do not include career firefighters who work for state or federal government or in private fire brigades. Volunteer firefighters include any active part-time (call or volunteer) firefighters. Active volunteers are defined as being involved in fire fighting. Of the total number of firefighters, 291,650 or 26% were career firefighters, while 816,600 or 74% were volunteers. Most of the career firefighters (76%) are in communities that protect 25,000 or more people. Most of the volunteers (95%) are in departments that protect fewer than 25,000 people and more than half are located in the small, rural departments that protect fewer than 2,500 people (see Table 1). Since 1983, a generally upward trend in career firefighters has been more than offset by a generally downward trend in volunteer firefighters (see Table 2). However, the number of volunteers is up 4.1% from the year before, and the highest it has been since 1995.