The number of volunteer firefighters in North Rhine-Westphalia rose to more than 90,000 last year.
According to the interior ministry's hazard prevention report, the number of active workers has increased by 1.7 percent in 2020.
These include almost 6,500 women.
Their share has increased by around 3.3 percent in the past year, it said.
Düsseldorf - Interior Minister Herbert Reul (CDU) called the development "great" in a message, especially since many events at which the fire brigades could otherwise present themselves to the public in order to recruit members were canceled due to the corona.
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The workforce at the professional fire brigades fell slightly in 2020 from 10,147 to 9,982 firefighters.
Together with the volunteers, they went on more than 1.8 million missions - about as many as in the previous year.
The largest share of this is made up of the emergency services (almost 1.5 million).
The fire brigade was called almost 136,000 times to provide technical assistance.
More than 53,000 fires were counted.
dpa
