California · NERIS

NERIS reporting in California

California runs on a mix that's easy to miss in the state totals: a lot of small volunteer and combination departments, and a firefighter headcount dominated by career staff. NERIS doesn't care which kind of department you're filing from; it asks the same questions either way.

Try it free

Fire departments in California

Departments in the directory: 765
Volunteer departments: 22%
Volunteer or combination: 59%
Stations: 3,498

Across the 603 California departments that report staffing, the directory holds 6,207 volunteer firefighters and 36,751 career firefighters; 14% 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.

A staffing mix that doesn’t match the department mix

Two different splits describe California’s fire service, and they point in opposite directions. By department type, the state isn’t lopsided the way a smaller state can be: of the 642 departments that report a type, 261 are career, 238 are combination, and 143 are volunteer. A majority run on some volunteer staffing, but nowhere near a near-unanimous volunteer picture. By headcount, the state tips hard the other way. Across the 603 departments that report staffing, career firefighters outnumber volunteer firefighters by close to six to one.

Both things are true in the same state at once: most California departments are not purely career, and most California firefighters are. That gap matters for who actually opens the reporting screen. In a department carried mostly by paid staff, filing into NERIS is one more task inside a shift that already has a chain of command and someone whose job includes paperwork. In the smaller volunteer and combination departments that make up the rest of the 642, there often isn’t a second person to hand it to — whoever ran the call writes it up, on top of whatever the day already held.

More than one house per department, most places

California also reports more stations per department than plenty of states run: 3,498 stations across the 617 departments that report one, which comes out to something like five and a half stations for every department counted. A department running several houses instead of one doesn’t shrink the reporting load. NERIS records each responding unit separately even when every one of them was dispatched to the same call, so multi-station operations tend to generate more reports per incident, not fewer.

What the trial actually asks of you

None of this needs to be solved before you can see what a report looks like. Record one call the way you’d describe it to another firefighter, read back what came out of it, and decide whether it’s worth changing anything from there. That step doesn’t touch NERIS, your roster, or your department’s records.

Worth knowing about California

California has 765 fire departments in the NERIS public directory. Of the 642 that report a department type, 261 are career, 238 are combination, and 143 are volunteer.
Source: snapshot: CA.department_count, CA.by_department_type, CA.departments_with_type_data
Across the 617 California departments that report a station count, the directory lists 3,498 stations — departments here often run several stations rather than a single house.
Source: snapshot: CA.station_count_sum, CA.departments_with_station_data
Of the 603 California departments that report staffing, the directory holds 36,751 career firefighters against 6,207 volunteer firefighters — career staff outnumber volunteers by close to six to one, even though most departments by type are not classified career.
Source: snapshot: CA.firefighters_career_sum, CA.firefighters_volunteer_sum, CA.departments_with_staffing_data

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

California departments that apply for Assistance to Firefighters Grant funding are asked to describe their call volume and operations as part of that application. Whether NERIS reporting affects AFG eligibility or scoring isn't something this repository can speak to, and a vendor is the wrong place to learn the actual rules of a federal grant program — that's a question for the program's own guidance. The narrow, practical point: reports that are already filed and current are quicker to summarize into an application than a year of calls that still needs to be reconstructed from memory or notebooks.

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 California 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 California 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.