NERIS Reporting | NERIS Specification | Fire Department NERIS Identifiers | What is NERIS? | NERIS Compatible |
The National Emergency Response Information System (NERIS) is the replacement for the National Fire Incident Reporting System (NFIRS). Fire Departments will eventually stop filing incident reports with NFIRS and start filing incident reports with USFA NERIS. NERIS is a modern equivalent for NFIRS, simplified for ease of reporting, and updated for today’s fire service needs.
Here is a quick overview of NERIS …
NFIRS was created in the 1970s and is showing its age; it hasn’t been updated in eons, and cannot respond to today’s fire services needs. NFIRS cannot respond to emerging hazards such as understanding electrical / battery fires, nor leverage newer technologies like GIS, nor integrate with Computer Aided Dispatch (CAD) systems. NERIS builds on NFIRS, leverages modern techniques and integrates with other fire and emergency medical / management systems.
We are running a series of posts on USFA NERIS. Also, check out our presentation of the November 2024 release of the NERIS specifications to learn about the NERIS modules and NERIS values.
NERIS is rolling out to fire departments in 2025. FEMA USFA have stated that volunteer fire departments can remain on NFIRS until they have migrated to NERIS.
For an application (such as Responserack) to be considered ‘NERIS Data Exchange Compatible’ it has to perform a set of tasks using the NERIS Application Programmer Interface (API) such as entering an incident, updating the same incident and adding a station to an entity.
Find out more at the FEMA USFA website: