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Raleigh is adding a dozen firefighters, but the firefighters’ union says that’s not enough to respond to fires quickly as the city grows.
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“The city continues to grow and annex land and expand its footprint,” said Caleb Lewis, president of the International Association of Fire Fighters Local 548, a union he said represents 80% of the city’s firefighters. “But they’re failing to add the necessary staffing.”
The Raleigh Fire Department had just over 550 firefighter positions in March, according to a union news release at the time.
Lewis says a city Raleigh’s size should have 150 more firefighters.
The city’s fire master plan, which came out in July 2025 calls for 18 new positions by this coming fiscal year rather than the 12 in the budget.
But the plan came out too late to get started in fiscal 2026, so the just-passed budget for fiscal 2027 was the first opportunity the city had to begin implementing it.
The department also had 56 vacancies in May, said city spokesperson Robin Deacle, though the latest fire academy graduated 20 firefighters, which will help fill some of those positions.
The current staffing leads to significant overtime, and there still aren’t enough firefighters on duty at a time despite that, Lewis said.
From 2021 to 2025, the number of incidents handled by the fire department annually went from about 47,000 to almost 62,000, an increase of over 30%.
That’s a bigger increase than Raleigh’s population, which has grown by 8% to just over 506,000 people in that same time period.
“This growth pattern suggests that demand for emergency services is outpacing population growth, indicating both increased community needs and potentially changing demographics,” the fire master plan reads.
Firefighters don’t typically comment on development matters before the city. But the union recently posted on Facebook its opposition to a proposed annexation of more than 25 acres on Jones Ridge Trail in northeast Raleigh that could bring up to 190 new homes.
The city requires an analysis of fire department service times when it considers annexation requests.
The analysis for the Jones Ridge Trail proposal said it would take 5 minutes for the first fire truck to arrive.
But, because of staffing shortages, that truck might only have three firefighters on it rather than the industry-standard four that the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration advises.
“This assures that the ‘two in’ can monitor each other and assist with equipment failure or entrapment or other hazards, and the ‘two out’ can monitor those in the building, initiate rescue, or call for back-up,” OSHA standards say.
The second truck would arrive after 11 minutes, which would enable firefighters to enter a building and begin fighting the fire, Lewis said.
But that’s almost double the industry standard, which calls for a minimum staffing of four firefighters at a scene within 6 minutes.
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And a ladder truck would arrive after 17 minutes.
“A ladder company provides a search and rescue aspect to a fire scene, ventilation work, [and] as a rescue team for the group fighting the fire,” Lewis said.
The ladder company would be the last to arrive out of the six vehicles that would be considered the response team for a one-alarm fire. A one-alarm fire is generally considered less serious, with each higher alarm level calling for a different and larger response.
The industry standard is for the entire one-alarm fire response to be at the fire in 8 minutes or less.
Lewis said a situation like that could put firefighters who enter a burning building in danger.
The Jones Ridge annexation will be considered by the council in a meeting at the Municipal Building on West Hargett Street on July 7, but Lewis said this problem extends to more than just a single annexation or rezoning.
Mayor Janet Cowell said the annexation request is on the northeast side of the Neuse River, which affects the response times there.
There are only so many bridges over the river, she said. Other fire response units, like Wake County’s, might also respond to a fire in the area, she said.
“Fire department inadequate response time and [equipment] shortfall is brought up at every annexation review, yet annexations continue to be approved,” the union wrote in its Facebook post. “Why even discuss it if it’s not a deciding factor?”
Cowell says she considers fire response times in every rezoning or annexation case.
“We are turning down cases where things don’t make sense for Raleigh,” she said.
She said the city is focusing on approving more infill development, meaning developing often underutilized land that’s in already developed areas more accessible to city fire, police, water and waste services.
City spokesperson Julia Milstead pointed out that in addition to the 12 new firefighters, the new budget adds three fire marshal positions. Marshals enforce fire regulations and inspect buildings.
“Together, those two plans take an important step toward ensuring Raleigh is able to maintain the high level of service the community has come to expect,” Milstead wrote in an email to The News & Observer.
She said Raleigh’s fire master plan was meant to be implemented over time, and the city is committed to adding more firefighters, equipment and fire stations in the future.
The plan calls for an additional two fire stations, in eastern and northeastern Raleigh, in the next three to 10 years. It also calls for replacing five aging fire stations in that same period.
The budget pays for some renovations at existing stations and includes funds to help make the city’s second fire academy permanent.
“The second fire academy each year will also help with making sure we can deal with turnover,” Milstead wrote. “Remember with the next academy, [the fire department]is close to ‘over hire’ status. This means that we have more recruits at the start of class than open positions. With turnover and attrition during training, this isn’t a problem. But it is an important perspective when talking about staffing. “
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The next fire academy class has more than 40 recruits.
This story was originally published June 16, 2026 at 3:07 PM.