This document will cover all of the general information regarding the NERIS transfer to better assist and inform your departments.
Here is what we will cover:
- NERIS ID and Definition
- Timeline of the NERIS Roll out Nationally
- Data Privacy
- Important Dates regarding NERIS
- Incident Types with NERIS
- Incident Location Usage
The goal of NERIS is to equip the fire service with near real-time information and analytic tools that support data backed decision-making for enhanced response to incidents involving all hazards
NERIS ID Title and Information:
The first two digits are letters that describe the agency type.
The middle five numeric digits are a geographic identifier — the FIPS code for the headquarters location of the entity or organization.
The last three numeric digits are randomly generated. Ex. FD12345496
- FD is a fire department that provides fire services and may or may not include EMS services.
- FM is a fire marshal, which may be county, state, local, or tribal
- EM is emergency medical or emergency medical and rescue only in service offerings in jurisdictions where the fire department does NOT participate in medical response.
- PF is Fire Department, a Private/Industrial/Other entity that represents fire departments of a private, for-profit, industrial, or related nature. Non-governmental in organization and funding. Ex. Refinery FDs.
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WF is Wildfire Agency, NOS that a Non-governmental entities that participate in wildfire response, preparedness, or research.
NERIS ID Assignment:
All Fire Departments who are operating as individual agencies and not merged under one fire department will be assigned a NERIS ID.
The assignment of new NERIS Entity (ID) numbers will occur through appropriate entity verification processes. For agencies that are Fire Departments, a NERIS ID will involve approval by the respective State Fire Authority
If you have not received your NERIS ID, you can find it here: https://neris.fsri.org/
Shared Reporting IDs will no longer be accepted unless merged into one agency and recognized by the USFA.
- No longer will be allowed to SHARE reporting IDs due to the design of NERIS
- Only 1 NERIS ID will be used for FDs who are merged and recognized as a single department.
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Ex. If you are sharing FDID for reporting, starting January 1st, you will be reporting incidents separately.
What improvements come with NERIS over NFIRS?
- NFIRS historically limited incident type selection to only one incident type, whereas NERIS allows multiple types per incident
- Simplify reporting by selecting incident types that accurately depict the scene, eliminating guesswork with single-category incident types
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Actions and Tactics:
- Modernized to capture comprehensive data including suppression techniques, ventilation efforts, and on-scene contamination
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Metrics on Rescues, Casualties, and Maydays:
- Detailed tracking of key metrics reflecting the vital efforts of firefighters during emergency responses
Enhanced Emerging Hazards and Structure Exposures:
• Emerging Hazards module will be used as the landing page for the dynamic environments we operate in, enabling data collection of evolving threats as time goes on in the fire service
• Structure Exposures, are now entered as a straightforward addition to the original incident report, streamlining entry even in complex scenarios like housing developments
National "Early Opt in" Schedule
NERIS is not authorized to serve as an entity’s system of record in fulfilling their local jurisdiction’s records retention or storage solution.
Incident Data Privacy NERIS Incident Data has undergone a privacy threshold assessment and has been determined not to contain SPII.
Fire Department - Data Entry Responsibility:
- Free text fields in incidents should not have SPII (Sensitive Personally Identifiable Information) or PII (Personally Identifiable Information) entered.
- If PII or SPII is entered into an open text field, NERIS automatically scans, identifies, and redacts such data/information to ensure privacy.
2025 will be a hybrid reporting year
- Once a fire department onboards onto NERIS and starts reporting incidents, they do not have to submit to both NFIRS and NERIS
- 2025 incidents can be submitted to either NFIRS or NERIS, depending on when a department onboards with NERIS live
- January 15, 2026 – End date for 2025 Incidents to be submitted to NFIRS
- January 31, 2026 – End date for edits/modifications for 2025 incident records in NFIRS
2026 incident reporting
- Starting January 1, 2026, incident data submission will be exclusively in NERIS
- No 2026 incidents will be submitted into NFIRS
**February 2026 - NFIRS will be offline**
Incident Types:
- The 3 digit Number series for incident types no longer exist
- Location Use within NERIS, better known as Property Use is the same functionality
- Fire incident types: Structure, Wildland, Outside, Transportation, Special
- Medical Incident Types: Injury, Illness, Other
- Hazardous Situation Types: Non-chemical, Hazardous Materials, Overpressure, Investigation
- Rescue Types: Outside, Structure, Transportation, Water
- Public Service Types: Assistance, Non-Medical Alarm, Weather, Other
- Non Emergency Types: Cancelled, False Alarm, Good Intent
- Law Enforcement Types: any Law enforcement assist/events