Results From Week 6 of the NVFC’s COVID-19 Impact on Fire/EMS Survey

May 1, 2020

The National Volunteer Fire Council (NVFC) created a survey to better understand the experiences of volunteer and combination fire, EMS, and rescue departments dealing with the outbreak of COVID-19 and related social distancing measures. We ask that you take a few minutes to complete the survey here, and that you re-take the survey each week so that we can track changes over time.

Survey Results

Between March 20 and April 23 there were 412 survey completions. In the past week, from April 24-April 30, there were an additional 35 survey completions from individuals belonging to all-volunteer (60%), mostly-volunteer (31%), and mostly career (9%) emergency services organizations. 77% of respondents from the past week reported having been adversely impacted by COVID-19, compared with 23 percent that have not.

View survey results here.

Notable Trends Analysis

  • 73 percent of week six respondents indicated that they were experiencing challenges related to being “Unable to train.” This is the answer choice that the highest percentage of respondents have reported as being a challenge in each of the past three weeks, since it was added to the survey.
  • Supply/resupply of PPE continues to be another area that respondents are having significant difficulty with (72% week 1; 60% week 2; 66% week 3; 59% week 4; 55% week 5; 54% week 6 for “running low” and 35%/25%/15%/16%/10%/20% for “run out”).
  • 51 percent of respondents in week six indicated that they were experiencing challenges related to being “Unable to recruit new volunteers.” This was the answer choice with the third highest percentage of responses.
  • The percentage of respondents indicating that staff are unwilling or unable to respond was 40% last week compared with 45% the previous week and 46% since the survey began.
  • The number of respondents decreased from 50 two weeks ago to 35 last week. The more responses the survey receives the more robust and useful the data are. Please take the survey every week to keep us informed about your experiences!