North Dakota · NERIS
NERIS reporting in North Dakota
North Dakota's fire departments sort almost entirely into one of two things, volunteer or career, with barely any combination departments splitting the difference. NERIS doesn't ask a different form depending on which one answers your call.
Fire departments in North Dakota
- Departments in the directory
- 361
- Volunteer departments
- 92%
- Volunteer or combination
- 97%
- Stations
- 353
290 of 315 departments that report a department type
306 of 315 departments that report a department type
reported by 286 departments
Across the 312 North Dakota departments that report staffing, the directory holds 7,557 volunteer firefighters and 764 career firefighters; 91% 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 categories, and almost nothing between them
North Dakota’s 361 fire departments split overwhelmingly into two kinds, with barely a bridge connecting them. Of the 315 that report a department type, 290 are volunteer, 9 are career, and only 16 are combination (about 5% of the typed roster), well under Iowa’s 6%, Vermont’s 8%, Connecticut’s 25%, or Idaho’s 31%. Where other states carry a real population of departments blending a paid officer with a volunteer roster, North Dakota mostly doesn’t: a department here is either staffed by volunteers or it isn’t, with little in between to soften the difference.
The same shape holds once you count people instead of departments
Pure-volunteer departments alone make up 92% of North Dakota’s typed roster, higher than Pennsylvania’s 89% or Iowa’s 89%, the closest comparisons on this site. The staffing numbers repeat it: across the 312 departments that report firefighter counts, career firefighters number just 764 against 7,557 volunteers, roughly ten volunteers for every one who draws a paycheck. Nine career departments and 764 career firefighters statewide is a small enough base that most incident reports here were never going to land on a records clerk or a duty officer with paperwork built into the job. They land on whoever answered, because there’s rarely anyone else assigned to catch them.
Not every field in the state’s own listing keeps pace. Just 57 of the 361 departments report a population-protected figure, but that gap says less about North Dakota’s fire service than the volunteer numbers above do.
What doesn’t change once the call is over
None of that changes what NERIS asks for once a unit responds. The module list and the three-level incident hierarchy are the same whether the department behind them runs on nine paid firefighters statewide or the 7,557 who aren’t. What differs is how much backup exists to help finish the report afterward. Test that directly: describe one incident you already ran the way you’d brief the next crew coming on, and see what the write-up turns into — no NERIS login, no department roster, and no account required first.
Worth knowing about North Dakota
North Dakota has 361 fire departments in the NERIS public directory, and 315 of them — 87% — report a department type.
Source: snapshot: ND.department_count, ND.departments_with_type_data
Of those 315 typed departments, 290 are volunteer, 16 are combination, and 9 are career — 92% typed purely volunteer, a higher pure-volunteer share than Pennsylvania's 89% (1,619 of 1,814) or Iowa's 89% (587 of 658) in this same snapshot.
Source: snapshot: ND.by_department_type, ND.departments_with_type_data compared against PA.by_department_type/PA.departments_with_type_data and IA.by_department_type/IA.departments_with_type_data
Combination departments are only 5% of North Dakota's typed roster (16 of 315) — a smaller share than Iowa's 6% (38 of 658), Vermont's 8% (17 of 202), Connecticut's 25% (60 of 240), or Idaho's 31% (60 of 196).
Source: snapshot: ND.by_department_type/ND.departments_with_type_data compared against IA.by_department_type/IA.departments_with_type_data, VT.by_department_type/VT.departments_with_type_data, CT.by_department_type/CT.departments_with_type_data, and ID.by_department_type/ID.departments_with_type_data
Across the 312 North Dakota departments that report firefighter staffing, the directory counts 7,557 volunteer firefighters against 764 career — volunteers outnumber career firefighters roughly ten to one.
Source: snapshot: ND.firefighters_volunteer_sum, ND.firefighters_career_sum, ND.departments_with_staffing_data
353 stations are reported across 286 of North Dakota's 361 departments, about 1.2 for every department that answered, while only 57 departments — 16% of the total — report a population-protected figure.
Source: snapshot: ND.station_count_sum, ND.departments_with_station_data, ND.departments_with_population_data, ND.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 about call volume, staffing, and how a department runs — the same ground a filed NERIS report already covers, whether the department behind it is one of North Dakota's 290 volunteer companies or one of its 9 career ones. Nothing in what we've reviewed says NERIS filing status counts toward AFG eligibility or scoring, and a vendor's page isn't where to learn a federal program's actual rules — the notice of funding opportunity is. What holds up regardless: those application questions are quicker to answer from reports already on file than from a season of calls somebody has to reconstruct from memory.
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 North Dakota 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 North Dakota 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.