Worth proving: How NERIS empowers departments to show the true cost of the call 

“The fire service has spent 50 years knowing more than it could prove. NERIS is built to reflect what the fire service actually does.”

– Bill Gardner, EMT-P, Executive Director for Fire and EMS, ESO

Change is hard in any industry, but especially in one where lives are on the line, which is why many in the fire service have met the shift from National Fire Incident Reporting System (NFIRS) to the National Emergency Response Information System (NERIS) with hesitation. After all, overhauling the workflows and documentation of those who are already giving the job their all is no small ask.

While no one joins the fire service to write reports, it’s arguably one of the most important parts of the job. This tedious task shapes budgets, justifies new crew members, and improves on-scene work. With costs rising and budgets tightening, documentation matters more than ever, and NFIRS was struggling to keep up.

In a recent Firehouse article, ESO Executive Director for Fire & EMS Bill Gardner makes the case for looking past the friction of adopting the new system, toward how it’ll benefit the industry overall: through data that finally allows the fire service to prove what the job is worth. Here are his three top takeaways:  

 Takeaway 1: The limitations of an outdated system  

“The gap between what the fire service knows from every incident it responded to and what it could demonstrate has been the defining frustration of a generation of fire leadership.”  

– Bill Gardner, EMT-P, Executive Director for Fire and EMS, ES

NFIRS wasn’t built for today’s fire service. Categories were frozen, classifications were dated, and the 18,000 departments dutifully entering their incident data into the system frequently found that there was nowhere to capture some of the most problematic issues facing the industry.

The patched-up system was no longer able to keep up, and the gap between what departments were doing and what they could actually demonstrate continued to widen. NERIS was designed to bridge that divide.

Takeaway 2: Stronger support for wildfire mitigation efforts 

Gardner mentions in the article that wildfire response protocols were previously unheard of for departments east of the Rockies. Now, FDNY has implemented them into its training regime. Yet, national budgets still favor suppression over prevention, in part because the cause reporting field – one of the most impactful for budgeting – is left blank most of the time. This is just one of many areas that NERIS will help to ensure reporting stays consistent.  

Takeaway 3: Culture must shift from within  

“Firefighters run into burning buildings to save people, not to spend the rest of the shift afterward documenting it.” 

– Bill Gardner, EMT-P, Executive Director for Fire and EMS, ES

While no one gets in the field for documentation, it’s one of the most important aspects of the job. When lives are on the line, it isn’t easy to make small changes, let alone overhaul an entire system. After years of firefighters inputting data into NFIRS without much return, it’s hard to convince them that NERIS will be different. That’s why this transition isn’t just a logistical shift, but a cultural one. When the data starts coming back as actionable reports, collecting it starts to feel less like a chore.  

Read the full article: 

Check out the full Firehouse article for Gardner’s full discussion on how he believes NERIS will help transform the fire data the industry has been collecting for years into insights that it can finally action on for fire prevention, response, and policy making.  

“The fire service has carried this profession on experience, grit and trust for 50 years. Now it has the evidence to match.”

– Bill Gardner, EMT-P, Executive Director for Fire and EMS, ES

How ESO can help 

ESO Fire Incidents is fully NERIS-compliant and certified to help our fire customers make the most of this new system and utilize their data to detail what your job is actually worth.

Want to see how Fire Incidents can help your department make the most of your NERIS data? Contact our team and let us show you how we can support your goals.