News

For Fiscal Year 2009, Congress appropriated nearly $1.2 million to the United States Fire Administration (USFA) for the express purpose of “continu(ing) implementation of the National Fire Incident Report System (NFIRS).” The United States Fire Administration Reauthorization Act of 2008 included a NFIRS Upgrades Section, which specified that, “The Administrator shall update the NFIRS to ensure that the information in the system is available, and can be updated, through the Internet and in real time.”

 

These actions by Congress were in response to calls from within the fire service, including from the National Volunteer Fire Council (NVFC), to upgrade NFIRS to enable enhanced data reporting, collection, and dissemination. In October 2007, Gordon Henderson testified on behalf of the NVFC at a hearing before the House Committee on Science and Technology’s Subcommittee on Technology and Innovation regarding the importance of NFIRS and the need to update it.

 

“While NFIRS is useful in its current capacity, it needs to be updated so that reporting can be done online as well as in written form,” Henderson said in his testimony. “Currently, data that is reported using NFIRS software can take more than a year to reach USFA. Some fire departments purchase their own software to keep track of and report incident data to USFA rather than using NFIRS. USFA should develop a web-based reporting system that would allow information to flow more quickly – to states and USFA. The NVFC is pleased that the authorizing bill addresses this issue.”

 

This spring, USFA is planning to release a new web-based data entry tool that fire departments will be able to use without having to download or install software. This will enable all departments to report information electronically independent of their operating system or bandwidth capabilities. Next year, USFA will introduce a new data warehouse designed to export data in different formats, making it easier to put the information collected through NFIRS to practical use.

 

USFA is planning other NFIRS upgrades and recently formed a stakeholder group to facilitate a two-way information exchange with the fire service to receive guidance from end-users and to disseminate news about NFIRS to constituents of various national fire service organizations. NVFC California Director Vern Losh participated in the stakeholder group’s first conference call in January.

 

The NVFC is committed to working with USFA and other fire service stakeholder organizations to improve and update NFIRS. We will continue to provide updates on NFIRS as they become available through the E-update.