Nebraska · NERIS

Catching up on NERIS reporting in Nebraska

Nebraska's directory answers the same way, department after department: volunteer. If your reports are behind, it isn't because your department is some unusual shape nobody planned NERIS around; it's close to the only shape this state has.

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Fire departments in Nebraska

Departments in the directory: 464
Volunteer departments: 92%
Volunteer or combination: 98%
Stations: 512

Across the 396 Nebraska departments that report staffing, the directory holds 10,161 volunteer firefighters and 1,746 career firefighters; 85% 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.

Nebraska’s fire service is a single shape, mostly

Nebraska’s own directory names 464 fire departments. Ask which are volunteer, which are combination, and which are career, and 383 answer: 354 volunteer, 20 combination, 9 career. There isn’t much room here for a “my department is probably different” assumption, because nine out of every ten departments that answered are volunteer outright, and folding in the combination departments barely moves the number. Nebraska isn’t split between two or three common department shapes the way a lot of states in this directory are. It has one shape, and a short list of exceptions to it.

Nine departments, most of the paid headcount

Count people instead of department labels and a second fact shows up. The 396 Nebraska departments that gave a firefighter headcount reported 10,161 volunteers and 1,746 career firefighters. Set that next to a type count where only 9 of 383 departments are typed CAREER, and the two numbers only make sense together if Nebraska’s paid firefighters aren’t spread thin the way its volunteers are. Instead they’re clustered into a small number of departments running a real staff roster, surrounded by hundreds of departments with nobody on payroll at all.

Station count and staffing count, one department apart

Two separate questions on Nebraska’s own directory come back answered at almost the same rate: 395 departments gave a station count, 396 gave a staffing number: one department apart. Those 395 report 512 stations between them. Whoever fills in a Nebraska department’s listing seems to answer both questions in the same sitting. Population protected breaks that pattern: only 133 of the 464 departments, 29% of the roster, have a number entered for it. That’s not a figure any incident report needs, just the one question Nebraska’s own listing leaves blank most often.

What that means for whoever’s filing tonight

Put the shape and the size of Nebraska’s fire service together and the person NERIS expects a report from is usually a volunteer at a small department, with the reporting landing on whoever ran the call — not a records clerk, not a paid office, one more thing after the truck’s back in the bay. None of Nebraska’s own numbers need settling before you find out whether narrating a call beats writing it up the old way. Talk through one real incident, read what the report turns into, and weigh it against your own stack. That first pass doesn’t need a NERIS account or your department’s roster.

Worth knowing about Nebraska

Nebraska has 464 fire departments in the NERIS public directory.
Source: snapshot: NE.department_count
Of the 383 Nebraska departments that report a department type, 354 are volunteer, 20 are combination, and 9 are career — 92% typed volunteer outright and 98% volunteer or combination together, with career departments at 2%.
Source: snapshot: NE.by_department_type, NE.departments_with_type_data
395 Nebraska departments report a station count, totaling 512 stations, and a nearly identical 396 report firefighter staffing — the two most-answered fields on the state's own listing sit one department apart.
Source: snapshot: NE.station_count_sum, NE.departments_with_station_data, NE.departments_with_staffing_data
Across the 396 Nebraska departments that report staffing, the directory counts 10,161 volunteer firefighters and 1,746 career firefighters — 15% of the counted headcount is career, even though only 9 of 383 typed departments are CAREER outright.
Source: snapshot: NE.firefighters_volunteer_sum, NE.firefighters_career_sum, NE.departments_with_staffing_data, NE.by_department_type, NE.departments_with_type_data
Only 133 of Nebraska's 464 departments — 29% — report a population-protected figure, summing to 1,309,623, far behind the 83% that answer type, the 85% that answer stations, and the 85% that answer staffing.
Source: snapshot: NE.population_protected_sum, NE.departments_with_population_data, NE.department_count, NE.departments_with_type_data, NE.departments_with_station_data, NE.departments_with_staffing_data

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

We're not going to tell you that filing with NERIS moves the needle on an Assistance to Firefighters Grant application — nobody selling reporting software is in a position to know that, and Nebraska departments have better sources for what AFG actually scores than a vendor's marketing page. Here's the one thing we'll stand behind: AFG applications ask what a department responded to and how it's staffed, and that section goes faster when the year behind it is already written up in finished reports than when someone still has to rebuild it from memory and a stack of run sheets.

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.

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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 Nebraska 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.