Fire Incident Reporting: Accurate Data Will Market Your Department

By Michael J. Barakey

Your engine company is dispatched for a report of smoke in a building. It turns out to be a fire in a garbage can in a bathroom at an office building. The fire is smoldering, and you extinguish it with a water can. The fire is contained to the metal garbage can of origin. Light smoke is in the bathroom, with an odor of smoke on the floor. You clear all units with the exception of the first-arriving engine and ladder truck. While the truck company clears the smoke, you gather appropriate information for your fire report. The damage is isolated to the garbage can, with the paint and wall covering charred and smoke stain on the wall and ceiling. The cause is accidental, isolated to discarded smoking materials in the wastebasket. Once back at the firehouse, you hand the information collected for the fire report to the firefighter in the jumpseat. As the officer, you have a rule that the jumpseat firefighter completes the fire incident reports for all calls except working fires.

As the firefighter sits down to complete the fire incident report, he is faced with a decision: a smoke scare, a building fire, or a trash or rubbish fire in a structure? If he decides to code the incident as a building fire (111) or a trash or rubbish fire in a structure (118), he must complete the additional fields associated with choosing the 100 series incident type. If he selects smoke scare (531 for a smoke or odor removal, or 651 for smoke scare, odor of smoke, not steam), he only has to complete the front sheet and a brief narrative. Perplexed, he seeks guidance from his mentor, the senior firefighter at the firehouse, who gives him valuable advice: “If this was a building fire, the captain would have completed the report. The quicker you complete the fire report, the sooner you’ll get out of the office.”

This is a common scenario many firefighters and fire officers face today. Who should be responsible to ensure the fire incident report is completed accurately? What training do we provide firefighters and officers to complete fire incident reports? Who audits the completed fire incident reports? What impact does accurate and timely fire incident reporting have on your department and the fire service?

HISTORY OF THE REPORT

Fire departments must compete with other city agencies for funding while being held accountable for providing acceptable services. Like corporate America, municipal government must show a need for a commodity or service.

Data drive decisions at all levels of the corporate world as well as all levels of government.¹ For the fire service, funding and budgetary requests have to be justified in times of lean government. Fighting fires and providing emergency services are expensive. As a result, justification and support for funding come from accurate reporting of data and incidents.

The National Fire Incident Reporting System (NFIRS) is an information-reporting system supported by the United States Fire Administration (USFA). Since 1976, NFIRS has been assessing the nature and scope of fire problems in the United States. Out of 31,000 fire departments, 18,000 contribute to the data collected by NFIRS. These departments report an average of 11 million incidents each year, including 800,000 fires.² Accurate data support localities, states, and federal government with millions of dollars. These data benefit every level of government, from local counties and cities to state and federal government. Data fields populated in NIFRS include date and response times, number of resources responding, estimated dollar loss and preincident value, casualties and fatalities of civilians and fire service members, detector performance, the nature of the call, the actions the firefighters took in response to the call, and a narrative to describe the incident and actions performed. Ultimately, the annual NFIRS data are compiled and published in Fire in the United States.³

Accurate data are necessary for your fire department. Performance measures can be compared with state averages for communities similar in size and capabilities. (3) Without accurate data, your finance department may not fund your requests, or your department may lose potential grant funding sources. As money gets tighter, you must be able to justify your needs. The responsibility of entering accurate data starts with the local fire department.

WHY IS THIS YOUR RESPONSIBILITY?

An interesting relationship exists between members assigned to fire operations and fire administration. Since the firefighters and officers assigned to operations respond to the emergency incidents, they have the greatest control of the data entered into the fire incident reporting system. Once the data are entered, personnel assigned to fire administration use the data to support, address, justify, and explain the department’s financial and business decisions. As a result, everyone in your department determines the future of the organization based on the data entered. The quality of the data entered determines the data fire administration has to report. Having data for statistical analysis is never in question; having quality data for statistical analysis is in question.

Your department uses the data entered into the fire incident report for various documents, including your department’s annual report, surveys from various professional organizations such as the International City/County Management Association, and the published budget. The data help as a recruiting tool, as firefighters often will choose to work in an active department. Accurate data collection helps to populate run statistics on department Web sites. The data are used in presentations to council and city leaders, justifying budget requests and program initiatives. Finally, data are distributed to community leaders, at civic leagues, to justify the distribution of resources, and for other specific needs for that community.

The quality of the data entered at the station level has national implications. Without accurate data, your department cannot understand the fire problem. Since the data are ultimately collected by the USFA and NFIRS, poor data collection is not only a local problem but also a national problem. As a result, every member entering fire incident reports has influence on the future of his organization. Potentially, with a lack of quality assurance or review, finalized reports may be flawed or inaccurate.

GARBAGE IN, GARBAGE OUT

According to the USFA, “Garbage In, Garbage Out” applies to fire incident reports.⁴ Furthermore, the USFA affirms that data quality is always a problem. “Fire departments need to establish data quality procedures if they intend to take full advantage of their data.” (4) A system to double check the collection and entry work is recommended.

The survival of the fire service depends on its ability to use critical information in making strategic and tactical decisions. Use of the NFIRS data as an analytical, problem-solving, and decision-making tool is crucial in developing strategic decisions. Gathering and extracting data from the national fire database and examining the data are necessary for advanced reports and analysis. Likewise, publishing data in logical, readable, and informative materials will assist in building cases to support strategic initiatives.

RECOMMENDATIONS FOR EFFECTIVE REPORTS

To increase the effectiveness and the accuracy of fire incident reports in the fire service, each department needs to do the following:

• Implement a standard operating procedure (SOP) on emergency incident reporting, which includes participants’ roles and responsibilities.

  —The company officer will complete the fire incident reports for all incidents that have property or content loss, any incident that is declared to be a working fire or incident, and any incident that has civilian or firefighter casualties or injuries.

  —The incident commander (IC) will review and submit all working fires or working incidents. The IC may elect to have the first-arriving company officer complete the majority of the fire incident report but should add comments to the narrative, review it for accuracy, and submit it after being satisfied that it was completed accurately. The report should also list the IC as the “officer in charge.”

  —The company officer will audit the reports completed by his subordinates, checking for completeness and accuracy.

  —When a fire incident report is completed for a fire that is “under investigation,” the fire investigator assigned to the incident will complete the cause and origin sections of the fire incident report and add comments to the narrative. If the fire investigator changes originally entered data, this should be noted in the narrative prior to being sent to NFIRS.

• Establish a formal checks and balances program to ensure all reports are reviewed in a tiered program for accuracy and consistency. Return any reports that are not completed correctly to the company officer for correction; copy his supervisor, explaining why the report was rejected. As the reports are reviewed and common mistakes are identified, errors will decrease and accuracy will increase.
• Provide training and re-education to all members who enter or review the fire incident reports. The National Fire Academy offers courses for members who are responsible for the administrative review or submission of fire incident reports. Also, check with the NFIRS program manager for your jurisdiction or state for any training classes offered.
• Provide company officers with the educational materials necessary to ensure fire incident reports are completed timely, fully, and accurately.

  —The International Code Council (ICC) Building Valuation Data (BVD) worksheet provides a baseline for estimating dollar loss at structural fires based on average construction costs per square foot. The square foot construction cost table provides members completing the fire incident report with a guide to consider construction cost based on a rebuild, as it contains structural, plumbing, electrical, interior finishings, and site preparations. Not all fires will need such extensive work, but the BVD will assist in determining the estimated dollar loss at a fire. Use the table to locate the occupancy and construction type and determine the price per square foot to rebuild. Note that the BVD is not recommended for additions, alterations, or repairs to existing buildings.

  —The NFIRS Coding Manual, which is available for download at http://www.nfirs.fema.gov/_download/NFIRS50CRG_011608.pdf, is another tool and should be accessible to all in a conspicuous place in each fire station and office.

  —Contact your local real estate assessor’s office about giving your department access to its database of assessed property values.

Fire incident reporting is a necessary part of the job even though documentation is often tedious. From historical preservation to recalling details during litigation, the fire incident report is a powerful tool. The data entered can assist in marketing your department. Also use the data to support your case for additional funding for staffing and equipment; demonstrate the need for additional fire stations; and improve contract negotiations between labor and management.

Take advantage of every incident. Complete all fire incident reports with care and the attention necessary to accurately describe the fire problem in your community. Complete each fire incident report with the notion that the data will arm your chief with the numbers necessary to convince elected officials and local administrators that the fire department is worthy of funding to provide quality services.

Marion Long, Virginia’s NFIRS program manager, uses this statement on the signature line of his correspondence: “Fighting Fires with Facts!” It sums up the importance of the data entered and collected into the fire incident reporting system.

ENDNOTES

1. Burris, KO, “ NFIRS: Better data for better decisions,” Fire Engineering, 2000 May; (153),107-108.

2. Licht, RR, ‘Sprinklers: Interpreting the Statistics,’ Fire Engineering, 2007 January: (160), 202-205.

3. Uses of NFIRS: The Many Uses of the National Fire Incident Reporting System, Federal Emergency Management Agency, United States Fire Administration National Fire Data Center, (TriData Corporation Publication No. EMW-95-C-4717, 1997).

4. Fire Data Analysis Handbook, Federal Emergency Management Agency, United States Fire Administration Publication No. FA-266, 2004, 5. (2004).

MICHAEL J. BARAKEY is a battalion chief with the Virginia Beach (VA) Fire Department, assigned to operations. He is the former chief of training. Barakey is a hazmat specialist, an instructor III, a national registered paramedic, and a Plans Team manager for VA-TF2 US&R Team. He has a master of public administration degree from Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia, and is a classroom instructor for FDIC.