Louisiana · NERIS
NERIS reporting for Louisiana's fire departments
Louisiana's directory leans heavily volunteer and combination by department count, but the people actually staffing those departments come out close to even between volunteer and career. NERIS asks the same set of questions regardless of which side of that line answers the radio.
Fire departments in Louisiana
- Departments in the directory
- 483
- Volunteer departments
- 46%
- Volunteer or combination
- 87%
- Stations
- 1,651
186 of 405 departments that report a department type
354 of 405 departments that report a department type
reported by 400 departments
Across the 421 Louisiana departments that report staffing, the directory holds 9,215 volunteer firefighters and 7,725 career firefighters; 54% 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.
Counted two ways, and the counts disagree
Add up Louisiana’s departments by type and the volunteer side dominates: of the 405 that report a type, 186 are volunteer and 168 are combination, meaning 87% of everyone who answered runs on volunteers to at least some degree, against 51 that are career only. Add up the actual people instead and the picture flattens out. Across the 421 departments that report staffing, the directory holds 9,215 volunteer firefighters against 7,725 career, closer to even than the department count would suggest, because the 51 career-only departments, 13% of those typed, carry 46% of everyone counted. A small number of departments hold a large share of the paid staff; a much larger number of departments are running mostly, or only, on volunteers.
Combination departments are the second-largest group, not a rounding error
168 of Louisiana’s 405 typed departments are combination. That is nearly as many as are purely volunteer, and well ahead of the number that are career only. That matters for who is expected to sit down and file a NERIS report after a call. A career department usually has someone on shift whose job includes the paperwork; a volunteer department usually has whoever showed up. A combination department can be either one, call to call, depending on who actually rode the truck that day — which means there isn’t a standing answer inside that department for whose job the report is.
What the directory doesn’t say yet
78 of Louisiana’s 483 departments haven’t reported a type at all, and only 146 have filled in a population-protected figure, under a third and well behind how complete the type, station, and staffing fields are. That gap is wide enough that this page doesn’t add the reported population figures into one statewide number; the departments answering that field are too small and too uneven a slice of the state to stand in for the rest.
Try it against a call you already ran
None of the above changes by finding more hours in the week. Pull up one incident you already handled, say what happened out loud the way you’d tell the next shift, and read back what comes out the other side before deciding whether it’s worth doing again on the next one. It doesn’t touch your department’s NERIS account, and there’s no sign-up first.
Worth knowing about Louisiana
Louisiana has 483 fire departments in the NERIS public directory. Of the 405 that report a department type, 186 are volunteer, 168 are combination, and 51 are career — 87% of the departments that answered run on volunteers to some degree.
Source: snapshot: LA.department_count, LA.by_department_type, LA.departments_with_type_data
The 51 career-only departments are 13% of the 405 typed departments, but Louisiana's staffing figures put career firefighters at 46% of everyone counted — a small share of departments carrying a share of the headcount well out of proportion to their number.
Source: snapshot: LA.by_department_type, LA.departments_with_type_data, LA.firefighters_career_sum, LA.firefighters_volunteer_sum, LA.departments_with_staffing_data
400 Louisiana departments report a station count, totaling 1,651 stations between them — just over four stations for every department that answered.
Source: snapshot: LA.station_count_sum, LA.departments_with_station_data
421 Louisiana departments report staffing — more departments than report a type at all — and among them the directory counts 9,215 volunteer firefighters against 7,725 career firefighters.
Source: snapshot: LA.firefighters_volunteer_sum, LA.firefighters_career_sum, LA.departments_with_staffing_data, LA.departments_with_type_data
Only 146 of Louisiana's 483 departments — under a third — have filled in a population-protected figure, well behind how complete the type, station, and staffing fields are, so this page does not total it into a statewide number.
Source: snapshot: LA.departments_with_population_data, LA.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
Louisiana fire departments that pursue an Assistance to Firefighters Grant answer questions on that application about their calls, their staffing, and how the department runs day to day. We are not going to tell you that NERIS participation factors into how that application gets scored — nothing in what we've reviewed establishes that, and a reporting vendor is the wrong place to look for a program rule anyway. The one thing we can say plainly: pulling those answers from incident reports you already have on file is less work than reconstructing a year of runs from memory once the application is in front of you.
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 Louisiana 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 Louisiana 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.