Fire Departments

19 August 2009

New Hampshire towns utilize different types of fire departments: career, call, volunteer, and combination departments. Career fire departments employ their personnel on a full-time basis and receive regular compensation. Call fire departments receive nominal benefits and are paid when called out. Volunteer fire departments receive no compensation. A combination department usually has a limited number of personnel who are paid on a full-time basis that is augmented with a call force. Generally, career departments will be more expensive than combination departments, which will be more expensive than call departments, which will be more expensive than volunteer departments. Career departments are also known as full-time departments. Some fire departments are full-time by day but call by night and/or on weekends.

There are over 30,000 fire departments in the United States of which only about 12% are full-time departments. There are a total of 227 local fire departments in NH of which only six (6) fire departments are true full-time departments (use full-time personnel exclusively). The other “full-time” fire departments are combination departments.

  1. NH Fire Departments (PDF)
  2. NH Fire Statistics for Full-Time Department (PDF)
  3. NH Fire Statistics for Full-Time Department By Day (PDF)
  4. VT Fire Departments (PDF)
  5. MA Fire Departments (PDF)
  6. RI Fire Departments (PDF)
  1. Connecticut Fire Departments (PDF)