South Dakota · NERIS
What NERIS reporting looks like for South Dakota's fire departments
South Dakota's 340 fire departments run 27 firefighters apiece on average, volunteer and career combined, on the rosters that report staffing. Usually it's the same one or two people who answer a call and then have to write it up. NERIS doesn't ask a shorter form because the department is small.
Fire departments in South Dakota
- Departments in the directory
- 340
- Volunteer departments
- 92%
- Volunteer or combination
- 97%
- Stations
- 366
271 of 293 departments that report a department type
284 of 293 departments that report a department type
reported by 298 departments
Across the 303 South Dakota departments that report staffing, the directory holds 7,597 volunteer firefighters and 696 career firefighters; 92% 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.
Twenty-seven, on average
Add South Dakota’s volunteer and career firefighter counts together, 7,597 and 696, and divide by the 303 departments that reported either number, and the state’s typical department roster comes out to 27 people. That figure isn’t something anyone typed into a form directly; it falls out of two sums and one shared denominator, both answered by the same set of 303 departments. Twenty-seven is a real crew, not a two-person outfit running out of somebody’s garage — but it’s also not enough people to carve one of them out as a records clerk.
Where the paperwork actually sits
Ninety-two percent of that headcount, 7,597 of 8,293, is volunteer. That lines up closely with the 92% of South Dakota’s 293 typed departments reporting as VOLUNTEER outright: 271 of them, next to 13 combination and 9 career. A department built around roughly two dozen mostly-volunteer people rarely has anyone whose job description includes finishing an incident report. The firefighter who rode the call is usually the one still holding it by the time anyone else in the department hears the details.
The field South Dakota keeps most current
Not every question in the state’s own directory gets answered at the same rate. Here, staffing edges out the others: 303 of 340 departments answer it, just ahead of station count (298) and department type (293). Population protected trails badly. Only 95 departments, 28% of the roster, have a figure entered. None of that changes what a filed incident needs. It just says where South Dakota’s own listing is thinnest, and it isn’t the field that matters for a report.
Twenty-seven people, one real call
None of the above needs sorting out first. The way to find out whether this fits a department that size is to run one incident through it, one you already responded to rather than a hypothetical, and see whether the report that comes back is closer to done than what you’d have written by hand tonight.
Worth knowing about South Dakota
South Dakota's directory lists 340 fire departments; of the 293 that report a department type, 271 are volunteer, 13 are combination, and 9 are career.
Source: snapshot: SD.department_count, SD.by_department_type, SD.departments_with_type_data
Across the 303 South Dakota departments that report firefighter staffing, the directory counts 7,597 volunteer firefighters and 696 career firefighters — 8,293 people between the two, which works out to 27 firefighters for every department that answered.
Source: snapshot: SD.firefighters_volunteer_sum, SD.firefighters_career_sum, SD.departments_with_staffing_data
298 South Dakota departments report a station count, totaling 366 stations — 1.2 for every reporting department, essentially one house per department rather than several.
Source: snapshot: SD.station_count_sum, SD.departments_with_station_data
Only 95 of South Dakota's 340 departments — 28% — report a population-protected figure, summing to 559,670; that trails well behind the 86% to 89% completion rate the directory gets on department type, station count, and staffing.
Source: snapshot: SD.population_protected_sum, SD.departments_with_population_data, SD.department_count, compared against SD.departments_with_type_data, SD.departments_with_station_data, SD.departments_with_staffing_data
Staffing is the most completely answered of South Dakota's four directory fields — 303 of 340 departments, 89% — narrowly ahead of station count (298, 88%) and department type (293, 86%).
Source: snapshot: SD.departments_with_staffing_data, SD.departments_with_station_data, SD.departments_with_type_data, SD.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
South Dakota departments running a roster of about two dozen people are exactly who an Assistance to Firefighters Grant application asks to describe in detail — what got run, how many people, what shape the department is in. A completed NERIS report already holds most of those answers. What this page can't tell you is whether NERIS filing status is scored or weighted in AFG review; nobody selling reporting software is positioned to say, and the honest source for that question is the grant program's own published guidance, not a vendor's page. The narrower point holds regardless: pulling those figures from a report already on file takes less of your evening than rebuilding a season of calls from memory once the application opens.
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 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 South 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.