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New York City -- the largest city in the U.S. and one of the most densely populated -- has about 14,000 fire personnel and EMTs. There are 8 million people in NYC, which means they have one full-time firefighter/EMT for every 530+ people.

Now translate that ratio to smaller towns and you can immediately see the problem:

1. Towns with fewer than 500 residents cannot justify the expense of full-time firefighters and EMTs -- especially when you consider how infrequently fires occur that require a major response.

2. Towns that cover a large area will typically require more fire personnel even if their population is low -- just because they'll need multiple fire stations to provide adequate response times for the whole town.

3. There are economies of scale in many fire department positions. You'll need at least one dispatcher on duty at all times regardless of whether your town has a population of 500 people, 5,000, or 50,000. The cost per resident for a town of 5,000 people will be far higher than the cost per resident for New York City ... and the town of 5,000 people doesn't have anything close to NYC's tax base.

4. I am very familiar with a town near me that has transitioned from a volunteer fire department to a mixed professional-volunteer force. The fire chief and senior officers are paid, and the officers drive the fire engines to the scene of a call. The rest of the force is volunteers. One of things I've noticed is that there is now a lot of political pressure for the municipal government to justify the expense of the paid force, so this town has seen two things that are almost non-existent in a volunteer fire department: (A) the fire department responds to each and every incident that anyone reports, and sends more equipment and staff than needed, and (B) the paid officers spend a lot of time in the community doing things like building inspections, meticulous fire code enforcement, etc. Item (B) isn't onerous because they are extremely lenient in giving property owners time to deal with violations (this is NOT being done for municipal revenue purposes), but I'd say 90% of what they're doing is a waste of time and is only done to show the residents and business owners that the cost of the personnel is justified.