New Hampshire · NERIS
NERIS reporting in New Hampshire
New Hampshire's 223 fire departments split three ways, and combination, not volunteer alone, is the largest group. NERIS asks the same set of modules of each one.
Fire departments in New Hampshire
- Departments in the directory
- 223
- Volunteer departments
- 43%
- Volunteer or combination
- 89%
- Stations
- 367
91 of 213 departments that report a department type
189 of 213 departments that report a department type
reported by 220 departments
Across the 204 New Hampshire departments that report staffing, the directory holds 2,419 volunteer firefighters and 2,854 career firefighters; 46% 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.
Nine in ten departments run volunteers. The roster doesn’t split that way.
Across the 204 New Hampshire departments that report a headcount, the directory counts 2,854 career firefighters against 2,419 volunteer — 46% of everyone counted, close to an even split. That’s a different shape than the department count alone suggests: of the 213 New Hampshire departments that answer the department-type question, 189 (89%) are typed volunteer or combination, and only 24 are typed fully career. Vermont, in the same snapshot, has a similarly volunteer-heavy department mix, but its counted headcount runs 88% volunteer. Maine’s runs 65%. New Hampshire’s, at 46%, is the one where the org chart and the roster agree the least.
Combination means a paid crew and a volunteer roster, not one or the other
Combination, not volunteer standing alone, is New Hampshire’s largest single department type: 98 of the 213 typed departments, ahead of volunteer’s 91 and well ahead of career’s 24. A combination department is already running both a paid presence and a volunteer roster under one name, which is part of why folding “volunteer or combination” into one 89% figure hides more than it explains here. Whether the paid officer on duty answers a call or the volunteer who got paged in does, both are working inside a department that NERIS’s own department-type field would record as the same thing: combination, not one or the other.
The report doesn’t know which roster you came off
None of that changes what NERIS asks for once the call is over. A career firefighter finishing a shift and a volunteer who got paged out both work through the same module list, filed for the same incident, out of the same station. 367 stations are reported across 220 of New Hampshire’s 223 departments, so the buildings were never the bottleneck. What’s harder to guarantee is that whoever answered, paid shift or volunteer callback, is also the one who sits down and writes the incident up before the next tone drops.
Worth knowing about New Hampshire
Across the 204 New Hampshire departments that report a headcount, the directory counts 2,854 career firefighters against 2,419 volunteer — 46% of everyone counted is volunteer, close to an even split.
Source: snapshot: NH.firefighters_career_sum, NH.firefighters_volunteer_sum, NH.departments_with_staffing_data
Of the 213 New Hampshire departments that report a department type, 189 — 89% — are typed volunteer or combination, and only 24 are typed fully career.
Source: snapshot: NH.by_department_type, NH.departments_with_type_data
New Hampshire's 46% volunteer share of counted firefighters is well below Vermont's 88% and Maine's 65% in the same snapshot, even though all three states report a similarly high volunteer-or-combination share by department count.
Source: snapshot: NH.firefighters_volunteer_sum/NH.firefighters_career_sum/NH.departments_with_staffing_data compared against VT.firefighters_volunteer_sum/VT.firefighters_career_sum/VT.departments_with_staffing_data and ME.firefighters_volunteer_sum/ME.firefighters_career_sum/ME.departments_with_staffing_data
Combination is New Hampshire's largest single department type — 98 of 213 typed departments — ahead of volunteer's 91 and career's 24.
Source: snapshot: NH.by_department_type, NH.departments_with_type_data
367 stations are reported across 220 of New Hampshire's 223 departments — nearly the entire directory answered the station-count question.
Source: snapshot: NH.station_count_sum, NH.departments_with_station_data, NH.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
Some New Hampshire departments apply for Assistance to Firefighters Grant funding, and the application asks about call volume and how the department is staffed — a different answer for a career house than for a combination department running both a paid and a volunteer roster. We haven't found anything that ties filing status to AFG scoring, and a software vendor is the wrong place to confirm that either way — the funding notice itself is the source to check. What we'll say plainly is narrower: that answer comes together faster from incident reports already on file than from a season of runs still waiting to be written up.
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 New Hampshire 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 New Hampshire 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.