Delaware · NERIS
NERIS reporting in Delaware
More Delaware fire departments run combination staffing than any other single type: paid and volunteer members on one roster, answering the same calls. Whoever ends up filing the NERIS report is filling out a different form than NFIRS used to ask for, whether they punch a clock at the station or not.
Fire departments in Delaware
- Departments in the directory
- 67
- Volunteer departments
- 37%
- Volunteer or combination
- 98%
- Stations
- 100
22 of 59 departments that report a department type
58 of 59 departments that report a department type
reported by 61 departments
Across the 59 Delaware departments that report staffing, the directory holds 3,107 volunteer firefighters and 815 career firefighters; 79% 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.
Combination companies, not a volunteer monolith
Delaware’s typed departments don’t split into a volunteer majority and a career minority the way plenty of states do. Of the 59 that report a type, 36 are combination (more than volunteer and career combined), meaning a paid firefighter and a volunteer firefighter are on the same roster, running the same calls, in more Delaware departments than not. Add the 22 volunteer-only departments and the state has exactly one department typed as career-only. Ninety-eight percent of the departments that answered the type question run on some amount of volunteer staffing, but over half of those also carry paid staff on the same roster. Whoever fills out the NERIS report after a Delaware call might be paid staff or might be a volunteer. The form doesn’t ask, and the roster doesn’t sort itself by who has time free for paperwork that week.
Nearly complete, except one field
Three fields in Delaware’s directory are answered by nearly every department: 59 of 67 give a type, 59 give a staffing count, 61 give a station count. Each of those sits comfortably above eight in ten. One field breaks that pattern: just 15 of the 67 departments say how many people they protect, about one in five. This page isn’t going to turn that into a percentage for the whole state — fifteen departments answering isn’t sixty-seven departments answering, and treating it like coverage would overstate what’s actually known. What it does show: a department can be fully accounted for on type and staffing and still leave population blank, and that same unevenness, field by field instead of department by department, is what shows up later inside an actual incident report.
The same next step either way
Whether the person who catches the next Delaware call is paid staff or a volunteer doesn’t change what NERIS wants back afterward: same modules, same incident hierarchy, same three-level codes either way. The fastest way to find out whether this fits your department isn’t a meeting about it, it’s one incident: describe what happened after the next run, then read back what it produced before deciding anything past that. Recording that one call doesn’t require your department’s NERIS enrollment to already be sorted out, and the form itself doesn’t care whether the person filing it is paid staff or a volunteer.
Worth knowing about Delaware
Delaware has 67 fire departments in the NERIS public directory, and 59 of them report a department type — 22 volunteer, 36 combination, and just 1 career.
Source: snapshot: DE.department_count, DE.by_department_type, DE.departments_with_type_data
Combination departments — paid and volunteer members on the same roster — are Delaware's single largest category: 36 of the 59 typed departments, well ahead of the 22 that are volunteer-only and the 1 that is career-only.
Source: snapshot: DE.by_department_type, DE.departments_with_type_data
Across the 59 Delaware departments that report staffing, the directory counts 3,107 volunteer firefighters against 815 career — 79% of everyone counted is a volunteer, and that works out to about 66 people per department reporting.
Source: snapshot: DE.firefighters_volunteer_sum, DE.firefighters_career_sum, DE.departments_with_staffing_data
100 stations are reported across 61 of Delaware's 67 departments, but only 15 of the 67 report who they protect — population served is the one field this directory mostly leaves blank in Delaware.
Source: snapshot: DE.station_count_sum, DE.departments_with_station_data, DE.departments_with_population_data, DE.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
Delaware departments that hold Assistance to Firefighters Grant funding still work through that program's own questions about how they operate — what they respond to, how they're staffed, what they run. Whether a completed NERIS report changes how an AFG application reads to a reviewer isn't a question this page can settle; that call belongs to the grant program itself, not to a records vendor. The one comparison we'll stand behind: a department that can hand over a season's incidents on request is answering from firmer ground than one that has to go build that season from scratch once the form is open.
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 Delaware call
Record one incident, read the report it produces, and decide from there. No account, no card, no call with anyone.
FireMic is a private company. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or recommended by any Delaware 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.