Report: NFPA's "US Fire Department Profile"
Author: Rita Fahy, Ben Evarts and Gary P. Stein
Issued: September 2022
Key findings
- NFPA estimates there were an estimated 1,041,200 career and volunteer firefighters in the United States in 2020. Of the total number of firefighters 364,300 (35%) were career firefighters and 676,900 (65%) were volunteer firefighters.
- In 2020, 89,600 firefighters were female (9%). Of the career firefighters, 17,200 were female. There were also 72,400 volunteer firefighters who were female.
- Fifty percent of firefighters are between 30 and 49 years old.
- There were 29,452 fire departments in the United States in 2020. Of these, 18% were all career or mostly career departments and protected 70% of the US population.
- Nationwide 37% of fire departments provided no emergency medical services, 46% provided basic life support (BLS), and 17% provided advanced life support (ALS).
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