BOARD OF VISITORS SUBCOMMITTEE MEETING

National Fire Incident Reporting System Update

Nov. 2, 2021, at 10:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m.

Zoom Meeting

Opening Remarks

Chief Kevin Quinn thanked everyone for joining this meeting. He stated that he had originally 

asked Mr. Richard Patrick to provide an update to the Board of Visitors subcommittee about the 

National Fire Incident Reporting System (NFIRS). The subcommittee consists of Dr. Mark 

Rivero and Chief Quinn. Chief John Butler is the chairman of the Board of Visitors, and he

joined the meeting as well. Under the Federal Advisory Committee Act rules, this was an 

informational session only, and there would be no action taken. Mr. Jim Heeschen was asked to 

introduce himself.

National Fire Data Center Overview

Mr. Heeschen introduced himself to the group. He is the acting branch chief of the National Fire 

Data Center (NFDC). He gave a brief update on NFIRS as well as a few other things within the 

National Fire Program (NFP) and other respected branches. Mr. Heeschen started with a brief 

rundown of some ideas of what is going on within the NFP division and how they go together 

with NFIRS. The Prevention and Information (P&I) Branch is working on a data visualization 

project to help prevent civilian fatalities. They are figuring out how to integrate NFIRS data into 

that project. 

There is a U.S. Fire Administration (USFA) podcast that is set to kick off in January 2022. They 

have ongoing improvements to the website and social media outreach from the P&I branch. The 

Emergency Response Support Branch is becoming more research oriented; they are performing 

an emergency medical services (EMS) needs assessment with the International Association of 

Fire Chiefs (IAFC). It is a study of fire and EMS response to electrical vehicle fires. They are

updating the EMS medical director’s handbook and web-based training program with the IAFC 

continuation of a long-term roadway safety operations partnership and a study of response to 

civil unrest by fire and EMS. There are a lot of things going on within the division. Mr. 

Heeschen stated that that was just some bonus information.

National Fire Incident Reporting System Update

The NFDC manages the NFIRS, which collects, analyzes, publicizes, disseminates and marks the 

information related to the nation’s fire problem. The participation is rather striking, given that it 

is a voluntary system. They collect over 29 million all-hazards incidents and all types of 

incidents from over 24,000 fire departments. The USFA also works with 250 third-party, privatesector vendors who develop programs for the NFIRS data specification. They also work with 

numerous federal partners as well as nongovernmental organizations and many other 

organizations across the country and internationally. More information about NFIRS can be 
found at https://www.usfa.fema.gov/nfirs/. Mr. Heeschen stated that his presentation was 

distributed with the meeting invitation. 

In October 2020, they implemented the NFIRS modernization that is called eNFIRS. This

modernized the architecture of the NFIRS and all NFIRS domains. It also resolved many security 

requirements, and releases are now easier to deliver but still follow the FEMA change 

management process. All of the system components were moved to a virtual environment. It 

created a single sign-on portal so that people — regardless of what their interaction with NFIRS

is going to be, whether it is inputting data or developing reports — will be able to go into the 

system through a single portal. This modernization also enforces the 2015 NFIRS 5.0 

specification. This specification has been in effect since 2015, but there were parts of it that were 

not enforced until this release. It has caused some interesting issues. They did give people a 

heads-up back in 2019 — a full year in advance — that they were going to be enforcing these 

data specifications and additional aspects of the specification. They are still here in 2021 trying 

to close out the 2020 calendar year data, and there are some issues that they are having to deal 

with from a number of fire departments. An example is that they are enforcing a 2-character 

street type abbreviation, whereas previously they had been able to put a 3-character abbreviation

in. That has caused some issues of getting that data or getting those records included in the 

system for the 2020 data year. The new system also includes a bulk import utility, so there is a 

separate page now for fire departments to upload the bulk of their incidents. These are all things 

that were put into place in 2020, and they continue to revise it. They are at revision 5 under this 

modernization and are preparing for the sixth one. That is just part of their normal business 

process in maintaining the system.

Some things that have not changed include the upload process and the ability to update an 

incident at any time until it is released to the public domain, the ability for users to access “realtime” data for specific types of reports as well as form-based incident reports, and the ability for 

users also to access “near real-time” data from the data warehouse. The data warehouse is where 

they are developing custom reports so that fire departments are able to access. All fire 

departments and state program managers are able to request access to the data warehouse and 

can access all of their data within 24 hours of it being submitted, as well as all released data from 

any fire department across the country. The data warehouse information is refreshed nightly 

every 24 hours.

At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, they implemented the first-ever national-level 

special study code within the NFIRS. They included an additional question which asked whether 

this incident was COVID-19 related, and the reporting department could select “yes COVID-19

suspected,” “COVID-19 confirmed,” “no COVID-19 involved” or “unknown.” Since inception,

they have collected more than 11.4 million incidents in which the reporting department included 

1 of those 4 codes. There is additional information about this special study at 

https://www.usfa.fema.gov/nfirs/covid-19-dashboard.html. This is updated every 2 weeks.

Mr. Heeschen showed a slide with a chart with a summary of the NFIRS COVID-19 special 

study code that is being used. About 5% of the incidents that include the code are COVID-19

suspected or COVID-19 confirmed. COVID-19 was not a factor in 64%. Chief Butler asked if 

COVID-19 suspected was one of the choices. Mr. Heeschen replied that it is. Next, Mr.
Heeschen showed a slide with the breakout of the types of incidents for which they receive a 

code. With rescue and EMS, it parallels closely with the distribution that is seen on the overall 

data set, which he said is encouraging. During 2021, they had 47 states participating, over 7,500 

fire departments and about 580,000 responses to confirmed or suspected incidents.

Within the NFDC, not only do they manage the NFIRS system, but they also conduct statistical 

analysis. The statistical reports explore aspects of the fire problems that affect Americans in their 

daily lives. They are primarily based on data collected through the NFIRS, but they also include 

other relevant data sources depending on the nature of the study. They use National Center for 

Health Statistics death certificate data. They combine a lot of their statistics with census 

denominator data. The result is quite robust and thoroughly researched and vetted. They can 

combine that information into a trend analysis on their website. The people at P&I — their sister 

branch — have done a great job of making a lot of these statistics readily available through the 

website. Chief Quinn asked if a lot of the information was viewed through pictorials. Mr. 

Heeschen replied that what is on the slides are at-a-glance material. Each of the topical reports is 

a deep dive and includes solid technical research that is not accessible to many people. They 

develop an “at-a-glance” — that is, the graphics that are seen on the slides. That is what they can 

distribute to the people. If someone wanted to do a deeper dive and see where the numbers came 

from, then they could go through the topical reports. More statistical reports are available at 

https://www.usfa.fema.gov/data/statistics/reports. Mr. Heeschen stated that the links are all on 

his presentation, and he did verify them all because they do change. They are embarking on an

NFIRS needs assessment specifically to give them direction on how to improve the NFIRS so it

can better serve the fire service and the American people. There will be more on that through the

next year or 2. Mr. Heeschen stated that was all he had and asked if there were any comments or 

questions.

Wrap-Up

Chief Quinn stated that they were just trying to get some updated information. He appreciated

that Mr. Heeschen shared the information, the slides and the links. They can certainly go and get 

more information as they need it. Chief Butler stated that this was a really good update. He 

thanked everyone who contributed to the meeting. Mr. Heeschen stated that his contact 

information is on the slides and that if anyone has any further comments or questions to feel free 

to reach out. Chief Quinn thanked everyone for setting up the meeting. Everyone thanked 

everyone, and the meeting was adjourned.

Attendees:

Chief Kevin Quinn

Dr. Mark Rivero

Chief John Butler

Mr. Jim Heeschen

Ms. Michelle Spielman