STUDY METHODOLOGY
Respondents. More than 30,000 fire departments that protect populations of 100,000 or fewer were surveyed by means of a 23-item questionnaire. Questions ranged from “What is the rural department’s most pressing problem (other than funding)” to “What kinds of mutual-aid agreements does your department have in place?” In addition, the committee visited fire sites (in California, Florida, and West Virginia) of varying terrains and demographics that had sustained large wildfires. Nearly one in five departments responded.
Data processing. The USDA Forest Service, Northeastern Area State and Private Forestry Office in Radnor, Pennsylvania, tabulated the data, and the Fire Analysis and Research Division of the National Fire Protection Association (NF^PA) in Quincy, Massachusetts, analyzed it. John R. Hall. Jr., assistant vice president for the NFPA’s Fire Analysis and Research Division, prepared a report in 1993 covering the survey data obtained from the rural fire departments.
Responder profile. Forty percent of the departments responding are designated “first responders” in areas with populations below 2,500 (the communities defined as “rural” by the Bureau of Census). Of these departments, 65 percent protect areas of 25 square miles or more. About one in four departments protects areas of 100 or more square miles.
Ninety-five percent of the rural fire departments responding do not have any full-time, salaried firefighters; and 83 percent do not have any part-time, salaried firefighters. The typical fire department has roughly 100 members, including inactive members (according to Hall). “Since there are fewer structures with greater distances between structures, to get from the firehouse to a fire as rapidly as in cities of 5,000, more firehouses, equipment, and firefighters will be required…to allow for the lower population density in places less than 5.000,” observes Meade in the 1991 NIST study (see Endnote No. 1).
