TEXFIRS Texas Fire Incident Reporting System State Fire Marshal’s Office Uses and Reports

What is a TEXFIRS Incident Report Written or electronic documentation Description of the circumstances Future reference TEXFIRS and NFIRS

Why collect it? Provides a way to maintain a legal document of the fact that an incident occurred Keeps management informed Provides a uniform manner of evaluating local, state and national needs Documents all that you do

Uses of TEXFIRS/NFIRS Mock Trial

Local Fire Department Use Justification of budgets Resource allocation Staffing decisions Trends of problems in local areas Comparison with State averages Comparisons with similar communities

Local Use and Presentation Educate your administration Promote support from community Incorporate in your funding applications Use charts or graphs to display Publish or distribute information

Identifying Trends Multiple years comparison Incendiary activity Juvenile and the Elderly fire involvement Firefighter safety

Users of NFIRS Local Fire Departments State Governments Private Industry Private Citizen U.S. Congress Federal Government Agencies Media Insurance Companies Law Offices Product Manufacturers Fire Organizations

State Uses of NFIRS Preparing Fire Marshal's annual report Focus Fire Prevention programs Recommend or support changes to legislation based on incident trend analysis The state uses its NFIRS data to analyze fire activity throughout the state and recommend or implement prevention efforts.

USFA uses of NFIRS The USFA uses NFIRS for: Prioritizing the many fire issues in the US Identifying aspects of the fire problem that require continued monitoring Quantifying the costs of fire (life and property) Preparing congressional testimony and justifying budget requests Facilitating agency management reviews Providing means of measuring the impact of programs and activities

Other Federal Agencies The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Committee (CPSC) National Highway Safety Committee (NHTSA) National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Center for Disease Control (CDC) Armed Forces U.S. Commerce Department Center for Fire Research U.S. Congress U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development U.S. Department of Treasury Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) Library of Congress U.S. Department of Justice Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT)

Consumer Product Safety Commission Analyzed the fire risk associated with portable space heaters, kerosene space heaters, wood stoves, metal chimneys, upholstered furniture, cigarettes, and sleepwear among other products Child-resistant safety standard for cigarette lighters Estimated between 80 & 105 deaths annually among children under the age of 5 would be prevented National Smoke Detector Project Research on potential product fire hazards and to identify the need for product recalls or product repairs The fields “equipment involved in” and “form of heat of ignition”

The Center for Fire Research NFIRS data is used to develop fire models and to conduct analysis of fire risk. Helped to define the U.S. Fire problem “America Burning Revisited”

Non-profit Fire-Related Organizations IAFC, IAFF NFIRS data can be used to generalize about the types of fires that present the greatest risk to firefighters and the type of injuries firefighter most often sustain Investigate whether particular pieces of gear are associated with fire fighter injuries NASFM Investigated the effect of California’s fabric flammability standards NFPA Often used as the basis for articles in the Fire Journal

Public Fire Educators Justify funding of programs for dealing with community fire problems as they are identified. NFIRS is the largest data set in the world!!

TEXFIRS Reporting All incident reporting TEXFIRS/NFIRS Monthly reporting Paper, vendor software, federal software Don’t need federal software account to report file receipt confirmation FD Reporting Status TEXFIRS Website

TEXFIRS Website “Fires in Texas” annual report Fire Department FDID list Incident count by month Reporting Guidelines Software Training Self Study Course Handbooks/forms Building Valuation Census Tracts

Valid Incidents Processing data files Error reports Vendor issues USFA Updates

Data Summary Report State Request Need based Report USFA Request Web Based Reporting Tool Request Summary Reports TEXFIRS/NFIRS Reports

USFA Web-Based Reporting Tool NFIRS 5.0 Web-based Summary Output Reports Tool enables users to obtain summaries and statistical calculations on the data saved to the National Database. Guest Account

Web-Based Tools

Summary Output Reporting Tool Click on Summary Output Reports Tool

User Account Login Enter: Your user account Enter: TX for state Enter: Your password Or, use Guest account

Choosing a Report Choose a Report

Summary by Incident Type Data Quality Detailed Selected Statistics Fires Under Investigation Fire Report By FDIDFire Service Casualties Monthly Incident Counts Civilian Casualties Incident CountsTally Incidents By Time SeriesIncident Listing Mutual Aid IncidentsFDID Incident Type Summary Data Inventory By FDID Unresolved Fire Incidents Fire Department InformationStructure Fire Causes Structure Fires by Property Use Residential Str Fire Causes Mutual Aid Given Unmatched Depts USFA Summary Reports

Completed Reports

Printing and Saving your Report Printing or Saving PDF file

Summary By Incident Type Report Incident frequency summarized by Incident Type The report includes % of the total frequency for each Incident Type code category. Summary information of Exposure incidents, Mutual Aid Given codes, casualties, and the total dollar loss for fire incidents. Note: No Activity incidents (N status) are not included in any frequency count.

SAMPLE REPORT “SummarybyIncidentType”

Fire Report by FDID The Fire Report By FDID generates summary information of fires, by Fire Department. Within each FDID, Fire Type is summarized at 3 levels: Building Fires, Vehicle Fires, and Other Fires.

Web-Based Reporting Tool Logout Log Out

What We Need to Know Input higher quality data The quality of information generated by NFIRS is only as good as the data entered at the fire house level Correctly and thoroughly input data Include property value and loss estimates Grants, training, NFA courses are depending on NFIRS data in the system Be aware, millions of dollars are targeted at problems identified through NFIRS

Acknowledgement There is a long way to go toward making even better use of NFIRS. But we have a system in place that works well. Everyone associated with NFIRS at the local, state and national levels should feel proud of the important contribution they have made. NFIRS will continue to guide fire protection in the U.S.

Time and memory are true artists; they remold reality nearer to the heart's desire. John Dewey Document All That You Do

Texas Department of Insurance State Fire Marshal’s Office P.O. Box , MC 108-FM Austin, Texas Phone: (512) FAX: (512) TEXFIRS