Mississippi · NERIS

What Mississippi's fire departments report to NERIS

Most of Mississippi's 717 fire departments can say what type they are. Far fewer have said how many firefighters they actually have. NERIS asks for both, every time.

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Fire departments in Mississippi

Departments in the directory: 717
Volunteer departments: 80%
Volunteer or combination: 92%
Stations: 1,015

Across the 210 Mississippi departments that report staffing, the directory holds 3,725 volunteer firefighters and 2,275 career firefighters; 62% 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.

Two directory questions, answered at very different rates

Mississippi’s directory lists 717 fire departments. Ask what kind of department each one is, and 552 answer: 439 volunteer, 69 combination, 44 career, a 77% response rate. Ask how many stations a department runs, and 545 answer, almost the same share. Ask how many firefighters are actually on the roster, though, and the response rate falls hard: only 210 departments, 29%, have entered a staffing count. A directory that can describe what a department calls itself, and how many buildings it operates, still can’t say who works inside those buildings for seven out of every ten departments listed.

What the smaller sample can, and can’t, tell you

Among the 552 departments that answered the type question, 508, a 92% share, are volunteer or combination, and only 44 are career only. Among the far smaller group of 210 that reported staffing, the answers split 3,725 volunteer to 2,275 career; volunteers are 62% of everyone counted there. Those two shares, 92% and 62%, aren’t the same measurement disagreeing with itself — one counts organizations by label, drawn from 552 departments; the other counts individuals, drawn from a set under two-fifths that size. Reading them side by side is fair. Treating the smaller sample as if it described the whole state is not. Population protected is thinner again: just 7 of the 717 departments have entered a figure, too few to total into anything statewide.

Station counts sit closer to the type data than the staffing data: 545 departments reported 1,015 stations between them, a shade under two apiece. A state with that many separate buildings, most run by departments too small to employ a records clerk, is a state where whoever answered the call is usually the same person who sits down with NERIS afterward, whichever of these fields they get around to first.

A smaller test than fixing any of that first

You don’t need any of the gaps above to close first. Pick one run from this week or last, describe out loud what happened, and read back what the report turned it into before deciding anything. That’s the entire trial: no roster to upload, no department login, and no requirement that Mississippi’s own numbers get more complete first.

Worth knowing about Mississippi

Mississippi's directory lists 717 fire departments, and 552 of them — 77% — answered the department-type question: 439 volunteer, 69 combination, 44 career.
Source: snapshot: MS.department_count, MS.by_department_type, MS.departments_with_type_data
Of those 552 typed departments, 508 — 92% — are volunteer or combination, and 44, or 8%, are career only.
Source: snapshot: MS.by_department_type, MS.departments_with_type_data
545 Mississippi departments reported a station count, totaling 1,015 stations — a shade under two stations for every department that answered.
Source: snapshot: MS.station_count_sum, MS.departments_with_station_data
Only 210 of Mississippi's 717 departments — 29% — reported firefighter staffing, and among those 210 the directory counts 3,725 volunteer firefighters against 2,275 career, putting volunteers at 62% of that headcount.
Source: snapshot: MS.departments_with_staffing_data, MS.department_count, MS.firefighters_volunteer_sum, MS.firefighters_career_sum
Just 7 of Mississippi's 717 departments have entered a population-protected figure, too few to total into anything statewide.
Source: snapshot: MS.departments_with_population_data, MS.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

Assistance to Firefighters Grant applications ask a department to describe what it ran and how it's staffed over the past year. Nothing in what we've reviewed says NERIS reporting counts toward how those applications get scored, and we're not the source to settle that question — the program's own notice of funding opportunity is. What we can say plainly is narrower: answering that section from incident reports already on file is a lookup, not a reconstruction of a year nobody wrote down at the time.

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 Mississippi call

Record one incident, read the report it produces, and decide from there. No account, no card, no call with anyone.

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FireMic is a private company. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or recommended by any Mississippi 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.