Utah · NERIS

What NERIS means for Utah's fire departments

Utah's volunteer share of fire departments runs higher than Idaho's, Colorado's, Wyoming's, Nevada's, and Arizona's in this dataset. Whoever ends up filling out the report after a call is, more often here than in most of the surrounding region, doing it without a paycheck.

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Fire departments in Utah

Departments in the directory: 228
Volunteer departments: 62%
Volunteer or combination: 83%
Stations: 419

Across the 175 Utah departments that report staffing, the directory holds 2,337 volunteer firefighters and 3,617 career firefighters; 39% 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.

Utah has 228 fire departments in the NERIS public directory, and 165 of them report what kind of department they are: 102 volunteer, 35 combination, 28 career. That works out to 62% volunteer, a higher share than Idaho, Colorado, Wyoming, Nevada, or Arizona shows in this snapshot. Idaho comes closest at 59%; Colorado, Wyoming, Nevada, and Arizona all sit lower, down to Arizona’s 24%. A chief running a Utah company is, on this one measure, less likely than a counterpart in most of the surrounding region to be paid for it.

The headcount runs the other way

Switch from counting departments to counting people and the shape flips. Of the 175 Utah departments that report firefighter staffing, the directory holds 3,617 career firefighters against 2,337 volunteers — a career majority in the headcount, in a state where volunteer is the largest department type by a wide margin. Paid staff sit inside a shorter list of departments; the 102 typed as volunteer are each carrying their own incident list without that concentration behind them.

Two fields the directory covers unevenly

Stations are answered fairly consistently: 419 of them across 174 of Utah’s 228 departments, about 2.4 for every department that reported one. Population served is not: only 41 departments state a figure at all, summing to 873,632, too small a slice of the roster for this page to add up into a statewide number.

What this means for whoever is behind on it

In a lot of Utah’s 102 volunteer departments, the two people who ran the call and the two people writing it up afterward are the same two people. NERIS doesn’t shorten its module list for that. Talking through the next incident instead of typing it, and seeing what the report looks like before deciding anything else, doesn’t require an account first.

Worth knowing about Utah

Utah has 228 fire departments in the NERIS public directory. Of the 165 that report a department type, 102 are volunteer, 35 are combination, and 28 are career.
Source: snapshot: UT.department_count, UT.by_department_type, UT.departments_with_type_data
Volunteer departments are 62% of Utah's 165 typed departments — a larger share than in Idaho, Colorado, Wyoming, Nevada, or Arizona in this snapshot: Idaho is next at 59%, then Colorado at 47%, Wyoming at 46%, Nevada at 41%, and Arizona at 24%.
Source: snapshot: UT.by_department_type/UT.departments_with_type_data compared against ID.by_department_type/ID.departments_with_type_data, CO.by_department_type/CO.departments_with_type_data, WY.by_department_type/WY.departments_with_type_data, NV.by_department_type/NV.departments_with_type_data, and AZ.by_department_type/AZ.departments_with_type_data
Across the 175 Utah departments that report firefighter staffing, the directory counts 3,617 career firefighters against 2,337 volunteers — a career majority in the headcount even though volunteer is the largest department type by count.
Source: snapshot: UT.firefighters_career_sum, UT.firefighters_volunteer_sum, UT.departments_with_staffing_data
419 stations are reported across 174 of Utah's 228 departments — about 2.4 stations for every department that answered.
Source: snapshot: UT.station_count_sum, UT.departments_with_station_data
Only 41 of Utah's 228 departments report the population they protect, summing to 873,632 — too small a share of the roster to total into a statewide figure.
Source: snapshot: UT.population_protected_sum, UT.departments_with_population_data, UT.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

A completed incident report is easier to hand to a grant application than a season of calls nobody has written up yet — that much is just true of paperwork generally. Utah departments holding Assistance to Firefighters Grant funding still answer that program's own questions about operations and call volume, and nothing we have reviewed ties NERIS filing status to how those applications are scored. Read the current notice of funding opportunity before assuming either way; a state page selling reporting software is not where that gets settled.

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 Utah call

Record one incident, read the report it produces, and decide from there. No account, no card, no call with anyone.