Maryland · NERIS
How NERIS reporting works for Maryland fire departments
Maryland's federal directory holds 364 fire departments, and the statewide totals average out to something no single one of them resembles: plenty of small volunteer companies next to a smaller number of much larger combination and career operations.
Fire departments in Maryland
- Departments in the directory
- 364
- Volunteer departments
- 64%
- Volunteer or combination
- 94%
- Stations
- 686
163 of 255 departments that report a department type
240 of 255 departments that report a department type
reported by 207 departments
Across the 259 Maryland departments that report staffing, the directory holds 18,689 volunteer firefighters and 9,268 career firefighters; 67% 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 state-wide average that hides two different departments
Maryland’s federal directory counts 364 fire departments and, across the 259 that report firefighter staffing, 18,689 volunteer firefighters and 9,268 career firefighters: 27,957 people, or roughly 108 for every department in that count. That average doesn’t describe a typical Maryland department; it describes what you get from averaging a lot of small ones with a handful of much larger ones. Of the 255 departments that report a type, 163 are volunteer and only 15 are career on their own. But 77 more are combination, the departments most likely to be running paid staff alongside volunteers, often out of more than one building.
Where the buildings are, and who counts them
Stations follow the same split. The 207 departments that report a station count list 686 of them, a little over three per department that answered — a number pulled upward by combination and career operations running multiple houses, the same way the firefighter count is. Station data is also the field Maryland answers least reliably among the three that matter for day-to-day operations: 207 of 364 report one, against 255 for type and 259 for staffing. (Who a department protects is thinner still, with just 45 of the 364 reporting a population figure, but that gap runs through nearly every state in this directory, not just Maryland’s.)
Finding out what that means for one report
Whether your own department sits at the small end of that average or the large end isn’t something this page can tell you in advance. One incident can: describe what happened the way you’d tell it to another firefighter, then check the structured version against what you actually remember. That comparison works the same whether your roster runs three people or three hundred, and it doesn’t require Maryland’s numbers to add up first.
Worth knowing about Maryland
Maryland has 364 fire departments in the NERIS public directory, and 255 of them report a department type: 163 volunteer, 77 combination, and 15 career.
Source: snapshot: MD.department_count, MD.by_department_type, MD.departments_with_type_data
Across the 259 Maryland departments that report firefighter staffing, the directory counts 18,689 volunteer firefighters and 9,268 career firefighters — 27,957 people, about 108 for every department in that count.
Source: snapshot: MD.firefighters_volunteer_sum, MD.firefighters_career_sum, MD.departments_with_staffing_data
The 207 Maryland departments that report a station count list 686 stations between them, a little over three stations for every department that answered.
Source: snapshot: MD.station_count_sum, MD.departments_with_station_data
Station count is the field Maryland's directory answers least often among the three central to daily operations: 207 of 364 departments report one, against 255 for type and 259 for staffing.
Source: snapshot: MD.station_count_sum, MD.departments_with_station_data, MD.department_count, MD.departments_with_type_data, MD.departments_with_staffing_data
Just 45 of Maryland's 364 departments report a population-protected figure, summing to 3,919,446 across only those 45 departments.
Source: snapshot: MD.population_protected_sum, MD.departments_with_population_data, MD.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
The Assistance to Firefighters Grant program asks a department to lay out its call activity and how it's staffed as part of the application. This page won't tell you that finishing your NERIS filings affects how that application is scored — that isn't something we can point to in writing, and a company selling reporting software is the wrong place to learn what a federal grant program actually checks for. What we can say plainly: pulling those numbers together goes faster from a stack of incidents that's already on file than from a year of Maryland calls somebody still has to reconstruct 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 Maryland 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 Maryland 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.