IAFF Local 3874 is made up of career firefighters and fire officers who serve with professionalism, integrity, and dedication—standing together for one another and for the people and communities who count on them.
Local 3874 begins with its people.
Our members are career firefighters and fire officers who train, respond, lead, and serve when their communities need them most. They bring different ranks, assignments, and years of experience to the job, but they share one responsibility: protecting lives, property, and the well-being of the public.
We are IAFF Local 3874, Monmouth & Ocean Career Firefighters Association. Our role is to represent the people behind that responsibility. We advocate for their safety, rights, health, and fair treatment. We support strong training, reliable equipment, and the professional standards our members need to perform their work safely and effectively.
This work is grounded in a simple truth: when firefighters and fire officers are properly supported, the public is better protected.
Our People
Behind every uniform is a person who has chosen a career built around responsibility, preparation, and service. Our members are expected to be ready on difficult days, make sound decisions under pressure, and work as a team when the stakes are at their highest.
IAFF Local 3874 is a labor organization—but that is only part of who we are. Collective bargaining and workplace advocacy are essential to our mission, yet our commitment reaches much further. We stand beside members facing the physical risks, occupational exposures, and cumulative stress of the fire service. We support them through injury, illness, and difficult moments while advocating for the staffing, training, equipment, and health protections they need.
At our core, we are people supporting people: career firefighters and fire officers standing together, and public servants committed to the residents, families, businesses, and neighborhoods that depend on them. Our strength at the bargaining table helps us protect our members; our service beyond it helps us strengthen the communities they serve.
That means ensuring our members’ voices are heard, their working conditions are safe, and their service is treated with the dignity and respect it deserves.
Our strength comes from solidarity. No matter a member’s shop, rank, assignment, or tenure, they are part of one Local. We stand together because the responsibilities our members carry are shared, and no one should have to carry them alone.
The Communities We Serve
Our five shops connect that shared purpose to the places our members serve:
- Millstone Township and Roosevelt Borough
- Howell Township
- Jackson Township
- Upper Freehold Township
- Neptune Township
Each community has its own identity, needs, and expectations. Our members understand that public service is personal. The people they protect are residents, families, business owners, and neighbors who depend on a professional fire service being prepared when help is needed.
Although our shops serve different municipalities and fire districts, they are united by the same commitment: to protect the public, strengthen the fire service, and give every member a meaningful voice.
Why It Matters
Public safety is built on people—people who are trained, equipped, supported, and prepared; people who understand the communities they serve; and people who trust one another enough to work as a team when it matters most.
That is why advocating for our members is inseparable from serving the public. Safe working conditions, dependable equipment, strong training, fair treatment, and professional respect help our firefighters and fire officers provide the level of service their communities expect and deserve.
Our members’ service also extends beyond emergency calls. Through public education, charitable work, outreach, and community involvement, they build relationships and strengthen trust before an emergency ever occurs. They demonstrate that service is not limited to the fire ground—it is reflected in how we show up for our communities every day.
The cost of this profession does not always end when the call is over. Occupational exposure to smoke, toxic contaminants, and other hazards can increase the risk of certain cancers, while repeated trauma and chronic stress can contribute to serious behavioral-health challenges, including depression, post-traumatic stress, and the risk of suicide. These consequences reach beyond individual firefighters, affecting their families, those who serve beside them, and the communities that depend on them. That is why advocating for prevention, early detection, safe staffing, reliable equipment, and confidential behavioral-health support is part of protecting the people who protect the public.
These are not abstract issues—they are lives, families, and futures, and Local 3874 is committed to standing beside our members through all of them.
“Our mission is clear: protect the people who protect our communities.”
— Andrew Hagenberg, President, IAFF Local 3874 (President’s Message)
This is who we are: career firefighters and fire officers, labor advocates, public servants, and your neighbors. Behind every uniform is a person with a family, a future, and a life beyond the job.
We are people first—people who have chosen to stand together, accept an extraordinary responsibility, and be there when our communities need us most.
Sources & Contact
Learn more through Local 3874’s About, Mission Statement, Community Service, and President’s Message pages.
For official information and updates, visit IAFF Local 3874.
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