Most volunteer application forms were written years ago by whoever needed one at the time, and nobody has looked at them since. That is how a department ends up with a three-page paper form that asks for information nobody uses, is missing information that would actually help screen a candidate, and, more than a few departments discover the hard way, includes a question or two that creates real legal exposure if a rejected applicant ever pushes back.
This page walks through what a volunteer firefighter application should cover, section by section, and why. A ready-to-adapt template built from this structure is available as a download below.
Start from what you need to decide, not what looks official
A volunteer application exists to help someone make a decision: is this candidate worth moving to the next step? That standard is a useful filter for every field on the form. If a question does not change how you screen or contact someone, it does not belong on the initial application, it belongs later in the process, or not at all.
This is also where legacy forms go wrong. A field that made sense a decade ago, copied from a neighboring department or a generic template, often survives for years after anyone can explain what it is for. Reviewing the form against "what do we actually decide with this" is usually enough to cut it down significantly.
The fields that matter
A complete application, without excess, tends to cover five things: who the applicant is, when they are actually available, what experience or training they already have, who can vouch for them, and who to contact if something happens to them during a call. Everything else is optional at this stage.
- Applicant information: full legal name, date of birth, address, phone, and email, enough to identify and reach the person.
- Availability: which days, evenings, or overnight shifts they can realistically cover, and, for combination departments, their civilian work schedule, since that determines daytime coverage.
- Prior experience and training: certifications already held, relevant skills (CDL, EMS, mechanical, technical rescue), and any prior fire/EMS service.
- References: at least two people who can speak to reliability and character, with a working phone number for each.
- Emergency contact: name, relationship, and phone, collected before someone starts riding, not after.
The fields to leave off the initial application
A few categories of question are worth avoiding on the application itself, independent of good intentions behind asking. Medical and disability-related questions are the clearest case: asking before a conditional offer is where departments most often create exposure, even when the goal is a reasonable one like confirming physical readiness, see the EEOC guidance below on what is and is not permissible pre-offer.
Broad, unscoped criminal-history questions ("have you ever been arrested or convicted of anything") raise similar issues, and background-check authorization language has its own disclosure requirements under the Fair Credit Reporting Act if a third-party report is involved. None of that means a department cannot ask, it means the initial application is usually the wrong place, and the exact wording is worth getting reviewed rather than guessed at.
Signature and consent language, not assumptions
If the application includes any background-check authorization, that language has specific legal requirements around disclosure and consent, this is not a place to reuse boilerplate found on another department's form without having it checked. The safer pattern is a short, clear consent statement reviewed by counsel, paired with a separate, standalone disclosure if a third-party consumer report is involved.
Get it off paper
Even a well-designed form loses candidates if it only exists as a PDF to print, scan, and email, or a paper form sitting in a folder at the station. A candidate applying from a phone, in short sittings, needs the form to save progress and work on a small screen, the content of the form matters, but so does whether anyone can actually finish it.