Community Choice between Volunteer and Professional Fire Departments

Abstract

This article presents an economic model for community choice between volunteer and professional fire protection services. Using data from the Indiana State Fire Marshal and the 1991 U.S. census, regression techniques were used to estimate the share of county population served by volunteer fire protection from variables measuring community demands for fire protection and relative costs of volunteer and professional departments. The results provide evidence that professional departments are cost-effective at high levels of fire protection and volunteer departments are cost-effective at low levels of fire protection. Per capita income, population density, education, property value, percentage of renters, farm receipts, and the percentage of commuters were found to be significant determinants of fire protection choice.