Approximately 70% of fire and emergency services personnel are:

• A. volunteers
• B. paid-on-call
• C. career firefighters
• D. fire brigade members

Answer: (A)

This question targets understanding of the typical makeup of the fire and emergency services workforce. Across the United States, a large portion of firefighters come from volunteer backgrounds, especially in smaller and rural communities. The figure around seventy percent reflects departments that rely on community volunteers to respond, train, and support operations, with the remainder made up of paid staff or full-time career firefighters in larger urban areas.

Knowing this helps you interpret the stat: while career (full-time) firefighters are essential and common in big cities, they do not represent the majority nationwide. The term fire brigade isn’t a standard descriptor used in NFPA contexts for the U.S. fire service, so it doesn’t fit as well as “volunteers.”

So, the best answer is that approximately 70% are volunteers because volunteers form the dominant portion of the overall fire and emergency services workforce in many communities.