NERIS Codes

Selecting your (primary) Incident Type

The general approach is to select the main group, then pick the sub-group, then pick the incident type.

For a ‘Fire’ example a Structure Fire:

• Fire is the main group
• Structure (Indoor) Fire is the Fire sub-group
• Structural Involvement Fire is the incident type

as such the end result is this incident type:

For a ‘Medical’ example a Stroke:

• Medical is the main group
• Illness is the Medical sub-group
• Stroke / CVA is the incident type

as such the end result is this incident type:

  

That approach mostly works, however …

There are a few things you’ll need to think differently about:

A motor vehicle collision (MVC, with injury) is in Medical / Injury, whereas an MVC (without injury) is Hazardous Situation / Non-Chemical and an MVC entrapment is in Rescue / Vehicle. In hindsight each is understandably grouped, but you might have expected them to be all together in one group. They are not.

Motor Vehicle Collision:

Incident	Qualifier	Code
Motor Vehicle Collision	Non-injury	HAZSIT / HAZARD_NONCHEM / MOTOR_VEHICLE_COLLISION
Motor Vehicle Collision	Injury	MEDICAL / INJURY / MOTOR_VEHICLE_COLLISION
Motor Vehicle Collision	Entrapment	RESCUE / TRANSPORTATION / MOTOR_VEHICLE_EXTRICATION_ENTRAPPED

… which is a bit of a head scratcher. Think about the incident type being within the context of its sub-group and group.

  

Grouping for what it was, not what it could have been …

I suspect that we approach ‘incident typing’ thinking, “what were we dispatched to, but more … what is the worst case scenario for arrival”? A smoke investigation might be in ‘fire’ ‘cos it could be a fire, a lift assist might be in ‘medical’. The actual approach for NERIS - when incidents aren’t escalated to the worse case - is pause, accept that the outcome was/is low risk, and that leads to …

• Lift Assist isn’t in Medical, but in Public Service. That is the same with Lost Person and Person in Distress.
• Alarms are also in Public Service.
• Gas Leak is in Hazardous Situation / Hazardous Materials where Gas Odor is in Hazardous Situation / Investigation.
• Smoke Investigation is in Hazardous Situation / Investigation.
• Weather Response is in Public Service.

Remember: these incidents did NOT escalate to the more serious main groupings of fire, medical,rescue, etc.

  

What is ‘Hazardous Situation / Non-Chemical’?

Hazardous Situation / Non-Chemical seems oddly grouped not by what it is, but by what it is not. That’ll be a bit harder to remember. The Hazardous Situation / Non-Chemical group also contains “Powerline Down”, and various other miscellany.

Come to that, what is hazardous situation? Isn’t that everything we do? Every incident we run? I guess it is any incident that doesn’t fall neatly into fire, medical, rescue or public service.

  

Working with Medical (Trauma / Illness)

Medical is grouped by injury (as in trauma) or illness, but the lists are not exhaustive. Take a look around, but don’t expect to find a code to match your situation. Get comfortable with “other traumatic” in injury or often “no appropriate choice” or “unknown problem” for illness.

  

No Emergency - False Alarm / Good Intent

The “no emergency” group needs a good look because it (especially the “good intent” sub-group) contains a lot of our frequently used codes.

  

See the NERIS Incident Types (Codes)

Review the full list of NERIS incident type codes, and groupings. There are fewer incident types than NFIRS, and hopefully easier to determine, and learning the groups / sub-groups makes good sense.

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