2004 National Run Survey: Part 2

For the 24th year, the career fire service takes to the pages of the Firehouse Magazine to share and compare statistics about company and department activity levels, funding, staffing and pay. A total of 259* fire departments took part in the survey, representing all 50 states, the District of Columbia and six Canadian provinces.

The departments represented in this latest survey protect 80,314,622 people, and they have budgets totaling more than $11 billion (budgets are listed in millions of dollars). They provide this service with 3,996 engine companies, 1,422 ladder companies, 1,741 ambulances and numerous other specialized units. They responded to 1,605,853 fire calls, 6,903,727 EMS calls and 9,946,970 total calls last year.

Part 2 of this survey features the busiest engine and ladder companies, chiefs and ambulances for 2004. Other categories will be featured in coming issues.

Our sincere thanks go to each department that participated. If your department does not appear, we invite you to request a survey form next year or download it from www.firehouse.com/magazine/surveys/forms.

*Two departments have been added to Part 2. Some data was not available when Part 1 of the survey was published and is as follows:

Olympia, WA: Population - 42,000; Budget for 2004 - $7,961,100; Total engines - 3; ladders - 1; medics - 2; chiefs - 3; Total strength of department - 80; Total calls - 7,054; fire calls - 225; EMS calls - 5,548; false alarms - 602.

Seattle, WA: Population - 700,000; Budget for 2004 - $113,316,500; Total engines - 33; ladders - 11; ambulances - 4; medics - 7; chiefs - 7; Total strength of department - 1,045; Total calls - 75,750; fire calls - 15,957; EMS calls - 56,269; false alarms - 6,472.