Rhode Island · NERIS
NERIS reporting in Rhode Island
Rhode Island's 66 fire departments split close to evenly between career and volunteer, with a smaller combination group in between. No single staffing model describes the state, so no single reporting habit does either.
Fire departments in Rhode Island
- Departments in the directory
- 66
- Volunteer departments
- 42%
- Volunteer or combination
- 60%
- Stations
- 181
25 of 60 departments that report a department type
36 of 60 departments that report a department type
reported by 61 departments
Across the 59 Rhode Island departments that report staffing, the directory holds 1,338 volunteer firefighters and 2,166 career firefighters; 38% 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.
A three-way tie, not a majority
Rhode Island’s directory lists 66 fire departments. Of the 60 that report a department type, 25 are volunteer, 24 are career, and 11 are combination. Volunteer edges out career by a single department, not by the kind of margin that settles which model the whole state runs on, and combination is a real third group rather than a rounding error. A state built around one model can hand out one line of advice and have it mostly hold: expect a volunteer secretary to end up doing the paperwork. Rhode Island can’t offer that same line. The department three towns over might run a full-time paid shift instead of a roster, or something that’s genuinely both.
What the same 66 departments add up to
Add up firefighters instead of departments and a related, separate number shows up: across the 59 Rhode Island departments that report staffing, the directory counts 2,166 career firefighters against 1,338 volunteers — 38% of the counted headcount. Combine volunteer and combination department types and they’re 60% of the 60 that report a type, so the reporting load here isn’t sitting with one kind of organization the way it does in a state that leans almost entirely one direction. It’s split across three different working patterns, each with its own answer to who is actually free to sit down and finish a report once the truck is back in the bay.
Not every field in the directory is filled in this evenly: 181 stations are reported across 61 of the 66 departments, but only 26 report a population-protected figure, adding up to 707,262 people covered, which is real but comes from under half the roster and isn’t a statewide count.
Recording one call doesn’t wait on which kind you run
Your department might run a paid shift, a volunteer roster, or some mix of both. Whichever of the three fits, the last step after a call looks the same: say what happened out loud, check the write-up it produces, correct anything that’s off, and send it in. Trying that against one real Rhode Island call doesn’t require sorting out which of the state’s three categories your department falls into first, and it doesn’t require an account to find out what comes back.
Worth knowing about Rhode Island
Rhode Island's directory lists 66 fire departments, and 60 of them report a department type: 25 volunteer, 24 career, and 11 combination — the two largest categories sit almost exactly even.
Source: snapshot: RI.department_count, RI.by_department_type, RI.departments_with_type_data
36 of the 60 typed Rhode Island departments — 60% — are volunteer or combination, even though volunteer alone (25) only barely edges out career alone (24).
Source: snapshot: RI.by_department_type, RI.departments_with_type_data
Across the 59 Rhode Island departments that report firefighter staffing, the directory counts 2,166 career firefighters against 1,338 volunteers — 38% of the counted headcount is volunteer.
Source: snapshot: RI.firefighters_career_sum, RI.firefighters_volunteer_sum, RI.departments_with_staffing_data
181 stations are reported across 61 of Rhode Island's 66 departments, but only 26 departments report a population-protected figure, summing to 707,262 — the thinnest-covered field in the state's directory.
Source: snapshot: RI.station_count_sum, RI.departments_with_station_data, RI.population_protected_sum, RI.departments_with_population_data, RI.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
Rhode Island departments — career, volunteer, or a mix of both — are all equally eligible to apply for Assistance to Firefighters Grant funding, and that application still asks how the department operates and how many calls it ran in a year. We're not going to tell you that NERIS status affects how an AFG application gets scored; nothing available to us says that either way, and a reporting vendor isn't where to check a federal grant program's actual rules. What we can say plainly: those questions get answered faster from incident reports already on file than from a stretch of calls somebody has to reconstruct from memory once the application is open.
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 Rhode Island 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 Rhode Island 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.