About FireDepartment.net
FireDepartment.net helps communities find their fire departments and helps fire departments find volunteers.
The first 13 years
FireDepartment.net ran for 13 years. It listed fire departments, stations, apparatus and personnel across the U.S., and helped departments get online and recruit volunteers. Before it closed in 2022, more than 8,000 fire departments had signed up, and the site drew millions of visitors a year for more than a decade.
Why it closed
Google changed its rankings so that most of a site's information had to be highly accurate, or the site lost traffic. FireDepartment.net had a dedicated person updating department and station contact information every day, and thousands of department personnel updating their own listings, but it still did not meet the bar. Within a month, traffic fell to a quarter to a third of what it had been, and the site could no longer cover its costs.
What is different now
- We started with Oregon and Washington, and may add more states over time.
- Every listing shows when it was last checked, and older listings are flagged.
- Recruitment is built around departments that are actively looking for volunteers.
Who runs it
FireDepartment.net was founded and is run by Lars Estrem, who spent seven years as a wildland firefighter with the U.S. Forest Service, six years as digital marketing manager at the Nevada Fire Chiefs Association, and nearly 13 years running FireDepartment.net.