South Carolina · NERIS

NERIS reporting for South Carolina fire departments

South Carolina runs more combination departments than career ones, close to three to one, and the departments that report stations report a lot of them. NERIS asks the same modules whether the report comes from a paid officer or a volunteer who just got home.

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Fire departments in South Carolina

Departments in the directory: 506
Volunteer departments: 52%
Volunteer or combination: 88%
Stations: 3,269

Across the 439 South Carolina departments that report staffing, the directory holds 10,814 volunteer firefighters and 8,041 career firefighters; 57% 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.

The middle category is the story here

South Carolina’s fire service doesn’t split cleanly into “mostly volunteer” or “mostly career” the way a lot of states in this directory do. Of the 413 departments that report a type, 213 are volunteer, 149 are combination, and 51 are career — a 52/36/12 split. The number worth sitting with is the middle one: departments that run a mix of paid and volunteer staff outnumber pure-career departments by nearly three to one. That’s a different shape than a state where the choice is binary, volunteer company or career house, because a combination department usually has at least one person on staff whose job includes paperwork, even when most of the roster doesn’t.

More stations than the ratio usually shows

445 South Carolina departments report a station count, and between them they list 3,269 stations, 7.3 for every department that answered. That’s a higher ratio than any other state or territory in this snapshot with at least 100 departments reporting the field. A department running seven stations isn’t running seven desks; it’s running seven places a call can start, each one generating its own set of unit responses that eventually have to become one report.

Who’s actually behind the keyboard

Staffing tells a related story. Across the 439 departments that report it, the directory counts 10,814 volunteer firefighters against 8,041 career. Volunteers are 57% of everyone counted, a real majority but not a lopsided one. Put that next to the department-type split and the likely person filing a given report varies house to house: sometimes a paid officer with a login habit already built, sometimes whoever from the volunteer roster answered that particular run.

What the trial actually needs from you

Nothing above has to be settled first. Talk through one incident the way you’d describe it to whoever was standing next to you, and read back what comes out. No NERIS login, no roster upload, nothing pulled from your department’s own files: one call, narrated once.

Worth knowing about South Carolina

South Carolina's directory lists 506 fire departments; 413 of them report a department type — 213 volunteer, 149 combination, and 51 career.
Source: snapshot: SC.department_count, SC.by_department_type, SC.departments_with_type_data
Among the 413 departments that report a type, combination departments outnumber career departments by nearly three to one — 149 against 51 — even though volunteer is still the largest single group at 213.
Source: snapshot: SC.by_department_type, SC.departments_with_type_data
445 South Carolina departments report a station count, summing to 3,269 stations — 7.3 for every department that answered, a higher ratio than any other state or territory in this snapshot with at least 100 departments reporting the field.
Source: snapshot: SC.station_count_sum, SC.departments_with_station_data, compared against the same ratio computed for every state/territory in by_state with departments_with_station_data of 100 or more
Across the 439 South Carolina departments that report staffing, the directory counts 10,814 volunteer firefighters and 8,041 career firefighters — volunteers make up 57% of everyone counted.
Source: snapshot: SC.firefighters_volunteer_sum, SC.firefighters_career_sum, SC.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

Assistance to Firefighters Grant applications ask a department to describe its calls and how it operates — categories that split further once a department mixes paid and volunteer staff, and split again once that staff works out of more than one station. We aren't the source for what the application asks for or how it's scored; that lives in the program's own guidance, not on a reporting vendor's site. What we can say plainly, and it's narrow: pulling those figures from reports already filed, station by station, takes less reconstruction than pulling them from a runsheet nobody has looked at since the call ended.

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 South Carolina 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 South Carolina 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.