West Virginia · NERIS
NERIS reporting for West Virginia's volunteer departments
Nearly every West Virginia department has told the directory how it's staffed, and the answer is almost always the same: unpaid. NERIS asks the same set of questions whether the person filing it draws a paycheck or not.
Fire departments in West Virginia
- Departments in the directory
- 437
- Volunteer departments
- 91%
- Volunteer or combination
- 97%
- Stations
- 600
395 of 433 departments that report a department type
419 of 433 departments that report a department type
reported by 428 departments
Across the 427 West Virginia departments that report staffing, the directory holds 41,954 volunteer firefighters and 1,146 career firefighters; 97% 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 widest split in the directory
West Virginia’s 427 departments that report firefighter staffing put 41,954 people on the volunteer side and 1,146 on the career side. Set that against every other state and territory in this snapshot and nothing else comes close: Pennsylvania, the next widest, runs about 13 volunteers for every career firefighter; West Virginia runs closer to 37. Career firefighters make up under 3% of everyone the directory counts on staff here. The department-type numbers hold the same shape — of the 433 departments that answered, 395 are classified purely volunteer, 24 are combination, and just 14 are career, meaning only 38 departments in the entire state carry any paid position at all.
A bigger roster, not more hands for the paperwork
Divide the volunteer total by the departments reporting it and the average West Virginia department carries about 98 volunteer firefighters, a large roster next to how few departments have any paid position behind them. A roster that size spreads out who answers a call. It doesn’t automatically spread out who sits down afterward and writes up what happened; that job tends to land on a chief, an assistant, or whoever keeps the department’s records, no matter how many names are on the roster. West Virginia’s own numbers back that up with more than a hunch: 433, 428, and 427 of its 437 departments answered the type, station, and staffing questions behind the figures above, so none of this is drawn from whichever departments happened to respond that year. (The field that thins out fast is population served, reported by just 193 of the 437.)
One report is the only real test
None of the ratios above prove anything about your own department. They describe the state it sits inside, not the crew you actually run with. Hand FireMic one real incident, the call still open on your desk or the next one that comes in, and see what the write-up looks like once it’s finished. Fourteen career departments and several hundred without a single paid position start from the same blank screen; judge it against that, not against anything above.
Worth knowing about West Virginia
West Virginia's 427 departments that report staffing count 41,954 volunteer firefighters against 1,146 career firefighters — a ratio of about 37 volunteers for every career firefighter, the widest gap of any state or territory in this snapshot.
Source: snapshot: WV.firefighters_volunteer_sum, WV.firefighters_career_sum, WV.departments_with_staffing_data — ratio compared against the same fields computed for every state/territory entry in state-department-snapshot.json
Of the 433 West Virginia departments that report a type, 395 (about 91%) are classified purely volunteer, 24 are combination, and 14 are career — only 38 departments statewide carry any paid position at all.
Source: snapshot: WV.by_department_type, WV.departments_with_type_data
West Virginia answers the type, station, and staffing questions for 433, 428, and 427 of its 437 departments respectively — all above 97% — while only 193 departments (44%) report a population-protected figure, summing to 1,558,537.
Source: snapshot: WV.departments_with_type_data, WV.departments_with_station_data, WV.departments_with_staffing_data, WV.departments_with_population_data, WV.population_protected_sum, WV.department_count
600 stations are reported across 428 of West Virginia's 437 departments — about 1.4 stations for each department that answered.
Source: snapshot: WV.station_count_sum, WV.departments_with_station_data
Divide West Virginia's volunteer firefighter total by the 427 departments reporting staffing and the average works out to about 98 volunteers per department, a large roster given how few departments have any paid staff at all.
Source: snapshot: WV.firefighters_volunteer_sum, WV.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
Fourteen of West Virginia's fire departments are typed career; the other several hundred lean volunteer or combination, which is the kind of roster a lot of Assistance to Firefighters Grant applicants have. That application still wants specifics — what the department ran, how it's staffed, how it operates day to day. We don't know, and won't guess, whether a finished NERIS filing changes how AFG scoring reads any of that; that determination belongs to the program's own guidance, not to a reporting vendor. What we'll commit to is smaller and holds either way: an incident that's already written up takes a lookup to describe. One that isn't takes someone's memory of a night from three months back.
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 West Virginia 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 West Virginia 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.