Michigan · NERIS
Michigan fire departments and the move to NERIS
Michigan runs more combination fire departments than career ones (249 against 95, more than two to one), and NERIS treats a report from either exactly the same way. Who actually fills it out depends on which kind of shift answered the call that day.
Fire departments in Michigan
- Departments in the directory
- 1,012
- Volunteer departments
- 63%
- Volunteer or combination
- 90%
- Stations
- 1,889
597 of 941 departments that report a department type
846 of 941 departments that report a department type
reported by 975 departments
Across the 845 Michigan departments that report staffing, the directory holds 10,349 volunteer firefighters and 10,630 career firefighters; 49% 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 departments, not just volunteer and career
Michigan’s 1,012 fire departments don’t split cleanly into two kinds. Of the 941 that report a department type, 597 are volunteer, 249 are combination, and 95 are career only; combination departments outnumber career-only departments by more than two to one. A combination department runs paid and volunteer staff on the same roster, sometimes on the same truck, which means the person who ends up describing an incident to NERIS isn’t fixed by department type the way it might be in a state built almost entirely on one model or the other.
What that does to the headcount
Count departments and Michigan leans volunteer: 90% of the 941 typed departments are volunteer or combination. Count firefighters instead and the gap nearly closes: across the 845 departments that report staffing, the directory holds 10,630 career firefighters against 10,349 volunteers, a difference of only 281 people. Combination departments are most of the explanation. A department can be typed “combination” and still carry a real paid roster, which is how a state that looks nine-tenths volunteer by department count ends up with career firefighters slightly outnumbering volunteers by headcount.
Stations, and one field that lags
1,889 stations are reported across 975 of Michigan’s 1,012 departments, under two for every department that answered. Population protected is the one field well behind the rest: only 430 of the 1,012 departments have entered a figure at all.
Filing it, whoever’s shift it is
The report still has to get written after every call, on a paid shift or a volunteer one, in whatever shape NERIS wants this year. A combination department doesn’t get to hand it off to a records clerk just because half its roster is career — whoever ran the call is still the one NERIS expects to hear from. Recording it out loud and checking what comes back takes about the same effort either way, and it’s easier to judge against one real incident than against a description of how this is supposed to work.
Worth knowing about Michigan
Michigan has 1,012 fire departments in the NERIS public directory. Of the 941 that report a department type, 597 are volunteer, 249 are combination, and 95 are career only — combination departments outnumber career-only departments by more than two to one.
Source: snapshot: MI.department_count, MI.by_department_type, MI.departments_with_type_data
1,889 stations are reported across 975 of Michigan's 1,012 departments — 96% of the roster answered, and it works out to under two stations for every department that did.
Source: snapshot: MI.station_count_sum, MI.departments_with_station_data, MI.department_count
Across the 845 Michigan departments that report firefighter staffing, the directory counts 10,630 career firefighters against 10,349 volunteers — a gap of only 281 people out of nearly 21,000 counted.
Source: snapshot: MI.firefighters_career_sum, MI.firefighters_volunteer_sum, MI.departments_with_staffing_data
Only 430 of Michigan's 1,012 departments — 42% — have entered a population-protected figure, summing to 6,273,717; the type, station, and staffing fields are all answered by a clear majority of the roster.
Source: snapshot: MI.population_protected_sum, MI.departments_with_population_data, MI.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
An Assistance to Firefighters Grant application asks about a department's call volume and how it's staffed — details a combination department in Michigan often has to describe carefully, since part of the roster is paid and part isn't. Whether NERIS reporting factors into how those applications get scored isn't something we can point to anywhere in writing, and it isn't ours to guess at. What holds up regardless: pulling those numbers from reports that are already filed is less work than reconstructing them from a logbook whenever a department decides to apply.
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 Michigan 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 Michigan 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.