The Workforce Solutions program creates a report that compares a department’s current firefighters to the general population in the department’s jurisdiction. This helps identify the potential markets and places in your area to target for recruitment.  The idea is the adage birds of a feather flock together.  It also can show you populations that you have in your area, but don’t have firefighters from. While obtaining volunteers from a new segment may be harder, it can yield a fresh new pool of volunteers.

The tapestry takes the addresses of your current firefighters and uses several sources of data and information to identify a tapestry segment category for the address. This is plotted and compared to the general populations segments within the specified jurisdiction of the department.  This information can then be used to find your core segment of firefighters and your developmental segments of firefighters.  Core segments are a large portion of your population and your firefighters. Developmental segments are a large portion of your population, but a small portion of your firefighters.

The following sample shows you some key pages that are generated by the tapestry.  The actual tapestry contains much more information.

Sample GIS Tapestry Report

If you have any questions about GIS tapestries, please contact us at ws@iafc.org.