You went out on a call, or to a drill, or you were pumping out somebody’s basement, and you got hurt. You are not paid for any of it. So the first question is usually the same: does workers’ compensation cover a volunteer?
Not exactly. New York wrote you your own statute — two of them, actually — and while the Workers’ Compensation Board administers them, the rules are not the rules of a comp case. The benefits are calculated differently, the deadlines are different, and the notice goes to somebody you might not think to notify.
Two laws, not one
Volunteer firefighters are covered by the Volunteer Firefighters’ Benefit Law. Volunteer ambulance workers are covered by the Volunteer Ambulance Workers’ Benefit Law. They are close cousins — same Board, same general structure, nearly identical benefit schedules — but they are separate statutes with separate claim forms, and you file under the one that matches the company you serve with.
The coverage is paid for by the political subdivision — the county, city, town, village or fire district — and a volunteer cannot be made to contribute toward it.
“Line of duty” is much wider than a fire
This is where good claims get abandoned before they are ever filed, because a volunteer assumes that only the fireground counts. Section 5 of the Volunteer Firefighters’ Benefit Law sets out sixteen categories of covered activity. Among them:
- Necessary travel to and from a fire, an alarm of fire, a hazardous material incident or other emergency — not only the work at the scene
- Instructing or being instructed in fire duties, and attending a training school or course
- Any drill, parade, funeral, inspection or review
- Meetings of the department or company
- Work on the firehouse, and testing, repair and maintenance of apparatus
- Maintenance of a fire alarm system, water supply system, fire well, cistern or suction pool
- Competitive tournaments, contests and public exhibitions of firefighter efficiency, as a contestant or an official
- Emergency rescue and first aid calls
- Attending a convention or conference as an authorized delegate
- Fund-raising activities of the company
- Leading an authorized youth program
- Pumping water out of a basement or other part of a building
- Instructing, supervising or participating in a supervised physical fitness class, group session or program
Read that list again with your own last twelve months in mind. A back injury at a pancake breakfast and a knee blown out at a drill are both closer to the center of this statute than most members realize.
There are exclusions — activity during a leave of absence or suspension, work in non-firefighter employment, and doing something you were ordered not to do. Intoxication and self-inflicted injury are excluded as well.
The money is a flat rate, not two-thirds of a wage
Here is the sharpest difference from a workers’ compensation case. A comp benefit is built on your average weekly wage. A volunteer has no wage for the volunteer work, so the statute pays set amounts instead:
- Temporary total disability — $650 a week, for injuries on or after July 1, 2021
- Permanent total disability — $600 a week
- Partial disability — $400 a week at a 75% or greater loss of earning capacity, $268 between 50% and 75%, and scaling down from there, with nothing payable below 25%
There is also a schedule loss of use for permanent loss of a body part, running on weeks in the same way a comp case does — a 25% loss of use of an arm, for instance, is 78 weeks. Disfigurement is compensable up to $20,000.
Figures confirmed with the Board in September 2026. These are statutory amounts and they change by legislation rather than on an annual schedule, so check the date of your injury against the rate in effect.
The medical coverage is better than people expect
Treatment is covered by the political subdivision’s insurer regardless of whether you lost any time, and it is in addition to any cash benefit. You do not have to be out of work to have your care paid for.
That matters for the volunteer who keeps going to his paying job with a shoulder that needs surgery. The claim is still worth opening.
If a volunteer is killed
A surviving spouse who has not remarried and has no dependent children receives $887 a week. There is a $56,000 lump sum payable to the surviving spouse or the estate. Funeral expenses are covered up to $6,700 — and for a firefighter killed during actual firefighting, the funeral is covered in full.
Dependent children are covered to 18, or to 25 if enrolled in an accredited school.
Ninety days, and it does not go to your chief
This is the trap. Notice of the injury has to reach the right municipal official within 90 days — the county clerk, the town or village clerk, the fire district secretary, or the city comptroller, depending on who you serve under. Telling your chief and filling out a company report is what everyone does, and it is not the same thing.
The claim itself is filed with the Workers’ Compensation Board on a Form VF-3 for firefighters or a Form VAW-3 for ambulance workers, within two years of the accident, or two years from the date of death.
Ninety days is a shorter fuse than the thirty-day notice in an ordinary comp case gets credit for being, because volunteers so often assume the company handled it.
On Staten Island, this is not academic
Two volunteer fire companies still run here alongside the FDNY — Oceanic Hook & Ladder in Tottenville and Richmond Engine Company 1 in Richmondtown. Between them they answered more than two thousand calls in 2025, according to reporting on the volunteer service. Volunteer ambulance corps operate across the city as well.
The statute’s definitions reach city fire companies — “political subdivision” is defined to include a city, and a fire company includes an incorporated fire corporation recognized by a city’s governing board. Whether a particular company qualifies is a factual question, and a fair one to ask early rather than assume in either direction.
If the claim gets disputed
Worth knowing: the short-term disability provision that lets an injured worker get paid while a controverted claim is fought names these two statutes by name, alongside workers’ compensation. If your line-of-duty claim is being contested on the ground that the injury did not happen in the line of duty, the same bridge may be available to you.
Frequently asked questions
I have a paying job too. Does this interfere with that?
They are separate claims under separate statutes, and a volunteer injury that keeps you off your paying job raises questions in both directions at once. That is a conversation rather than a web page — bring what you have for both and we will sort out what gets filed where.
I was hurt driving to the firehouse. Is that covered?
Necessary travel to and from an emergency is written into the statute, and travel to other covered activities is addressed by the same section. Where you were going and why you were going there are the facts that matter, so do not talk yourself out of a claim because you were still in your own car.
It happened months ago and nobody filed anything. Am I finished?
Not necessarily. The ninety days runs on notice, the two years runs on the claim, and they are different clocks. Late notice is a problem to be argued rather than an automatic ending, and the sooner someone looks at it the more there is to work with.
I am an EMT with an ambulance corps, not a fire company.
Then the Volunteer Ambulance Workers’ Benefit Law is yours, and the claim form is a VAW-3. The benefit schedule tracks the firefighters’ law closely. If you volunteer with both, say so — it can matter which activity you were engaged in when you were hurt.
Does it change anything that I was not fighting a fire?
Usually not. Drills, training, meetings, maintenance, fundraising and supervised fitness sessions are all named in the statute. The question is whether the activity is one the law covers, not whether it was dramatic.
If you were hurt on a call
Call the office at 718.701.2776 or 800.310.5520. The consultation costs nothing, and the ninety-day notice is the reason not to sit on it.
This page describes New York law in general terms. It is not legal advice about your claim, and reading it does not make us your attorneys.
We handle workers’ compensation claims for injured workers throughout the five boroughs and across New York State. If we don’t recover money for you, we don’t get paid.
