Arkansas · NERIS

NERIS reporting in Arkansas

Arkansas has a lot of small, largely volunteer fire departments, and the state's own directory shows real gaps in what gets reported field to field. None of that changes what NERIS expects from whoever ends up filing: the same set of questions, one incident at a time.

Try it free

Fire departments in Arkansas

Departments in the directory: 945
Volunteer departments: 85%
Volunteer or combination: 96%
Stations: 1,537

Across the 726 Arkansas departments that report staffing, the directory holds 12,100 volunteer firefighters and 3,560 career firefighters; 77% of those counted are volunteers.

Source: the NERIS public department directory, as mirrored in our departments table on July 28, 2026. Percentages are stated against the number of departments that actually reported the field, which is always shown next to them. Departments that reported nothing are not counted as zero and no figure here is estimated.

What the record actually shows, field by field

Arkansas’s directory lists 945 fire departments, but the numbers behind that count don’t all rest on the same foundation. 709 of those departments have answered what type they are: 602 volunteer, 77 combination, only 30 career. That puts 96% of the departments willing to answer on the volunteer side in some form. Station reporting is a bit more complete: 756 departments list a count, totaling 1,537 stations between them, about two houses for every department that answered. Staffing data comes from 726 departments and tells the same story from a third angle. It shows 12,100 volunteer firefighters against 3,560 career, 77% of everyone counted. Population protected is the outlier: only 197 departments have filled it in, barely a fifth of the state’s total and well below how complete the other three fields are — too thin a sample to add into a statewide number worth printing here.

Small departments, and where the reporting question lands

None of that completeness gap changes who ends up filing the report. A state built out of 945 departments averaging roughly two stations apiece is not a state with records offices attached to most of those houses. It’s whoever answered the call, doing NERIS afterward on top of whatever else that week held. The module structure NERIS uses doesn’t get shorter because the department typing it has thirty members instead of three hundred; it asks the same set of questions of a volunteer running one truck out of one bay as it does of a career department with a shift schedule and a clerk on staff.

Testing it against one real call

The only way to know whether this actually shortens the job is to run it against something you already did: narrate a call the way you’d describe it to the next crew, look at what it turns into, and decide from there whether it beats however you’re filing now. That step doesn’t touch your department’s NERIS account or anyone else’s records. It’s just you and one incident, and there’s nothing to sign up for first.

Worth knowing about Arkansas

Arkansas has 945 fire departments in the NERIS public directory. Of the 709 that report a department type, 602 are volunteer, 77 are combination, and 30 are career.
Source: snapshot: AR.department_count, AR.by_department_type, AR.departments_with_type_data
Of the same 709 typed departments, 679 — 96% — are volunteer or combination, leaving only 30 as career only.
Source: snapshot: AR.by_department_type, AR.departments_with_type_data
756 Arkansas departments report a station count, totaling 1,537 stations between them — about two stations for every department that answered.
Source: snapshot: AR.station_count_sum, AR.departments_with_station_data
Across the 726 Arkansas departments that report staffing, the directory counts 12,100 volunteer firefighters against 3,560 career — 77% of everyone counted is a volunteer.
Source: snapshot: AR.firefighters_volunteer_sum, AR.firefighters_career_sum, AR.departments_with_staffing_data
Only 197 of Arkansas's 945 departments have filled in the population-protected field, well below how complete the type, station, and staffing fields are — too thin to total into a statewide figure here.
Source: snapshot: AR.departments_with_population_data, AR.department_count

What changed

NERIS replaced NFIRS as the federal fire incident reporting standard onFebruary 1, 2026. It is a different shape of report, not a renamed one: modules instead of flat forms, a three-level text hierarchy instead of numeric incident codes, and an API instead of a file you upload.

What actually changed, in detail · NERIS onboarding (FSRI) · Department sign-up

About grant applications

Arkansas departments applying for an Assistance to Firefighters Grant answer questions about their calls and their staffing as part of that application. This page does not carry a citation saying NERIS reporting factors into AFG eligibility or scoring, so it will not claim one either way. What is true independent of that: pulling those answers from incident reports already filed is less work than reconstructing a year of calls from memory or a paper logbook first.

We are a vendor, not a grant advisor. Do not take our word for what any grant program requires. Read the current notice of funding opportunity or ask your state's grant coordinator.

Try it on a real Arkansas call

Record one incident, read the report it produces, and decide from there. No account, no card, no call with anyone.

Try it free

FireMic is a private company. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or recommended by any Arkansas state agency, USFA, FSRI, or FEMA. State fire officials do not endorse vendors, and nothing on this page should be read as suggesting otherwise.

Department figures: FireMic Supabase departments table (mirror of the NERIS public department directory, ArcGIS layer 0). Snapshot taken July 28, 2026.