Originally published New Platform to Modernize National Fire Data and Intelligence on by https://www.hstoday.us/subject-matter-areas/emergency-preparedness/new-platform-to-modernize-national-fire-data-and-intelligence/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=new-platform-to-modernize-national-fire-data-and-intelligence at Homeland Security
In 1974, a series of fires tore through Chicago, prompting legislation that ultimately created a national fire service to examine trends and offer solutions to both regional and national fire concerns. Fifty years later, S&T, in partnership with the U.S. Fire Administration (USFA) and the nation’s fire and emergency medical services, released an innovative new technology platform to further support this mission in a way that legacy, antiquated systems could not.
The National Emergency Response Information System (NERIS) is a secure, cloud-based platform developed in collaboration with the U.S. fire service to capture all-hazards incident data and provide analytic tools for local fire and emergency service leaders in near real time. Launched in November 2024, NERIS marks the culmination of a collaboration between S&T, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), USFA, the Fire Safety Research Institute (FSRI), part of UL Research Institutes, local fire and emergency services and non-governmental partners to modernize fire incident data collection and analytics nationwide.
“We kicked off this project in close partnership with S&T, recognizing from the start that we were facing a major challenge—the national fire-based all-hazards incident data just wasn’t cutting it in terms of quality, completeness, or reliability,” said USFA Advisor Rebecca Harned. “The bottom line is, without good data—at the local level or nationally—we can’t fully understand the scope or specifics of the problems we’re trying to solve. And that makes it much harder to improve anything.”
In partnership with the USFA, FEMA and FSRI, S&T began development of NERIS in 2023 to replace the National Fire Incident Reporting System (NFIRS) as the primary reporting tool across the United States. NFIRS is essentially a large database, but it does not allow fire departments to effectively coordinate or share accurate, complete, and timely fire incident information—and it offers no analytic capabilities. The challenge for S&T was to help develop a more modern architecture that could enable more consistent and timely data collection, introduce automation and analytics, and allow for later application of artificial intelligence elements to enhance analytic capacity.
The goal was to equip the fire service with science-based, data-driven intelligence to inform decision-making. To that end, S&T was instrumental in building the open solutions architecture to serve as the backbone of NERIS. The architecture provides modernized mechanisms to using APIs to fuse and integrate data from multiple sources, then enable automated analysis to serve as actionable insights.
The multi-year plan started with developing an interoperable data model built on open standards and a strong data governance framework. Next, S&T ensured that the architecture underlying that platform was secure, scalable, resilient, and flexible to adapt as technology evolves into the future. Additionally, S&T supported the team in developing a national fire department onboarding strategy and plan to ensure a successful nationwide roll-out.
“We took a crawl-walk-run kind of approach, because we have to make sure that there is a smooth transition from the legacy system to NERIS, and ensure the scalability of the onboarding process,” said S&T Senior Science Advisor David Alexander.
The better part of 2024 was spent piloting the platform and refining based on feedback from the 60 fire departments that participated. The pilot program involved all types of fire departments (rural, urban, volunteer) and geographies. As each one onboarded onto NERIS, S&T gathered user feedback on overall ease of use, including the time it took to onboard, user time to complete incident records, and the usability of the data for the local fire service. These and other performance metrics were supplemented by fire service engagement during individualized onboarding. All this input was used to improve the system and enhance the user experience.
Those who took part in the NERIS pilot program provided positive reviews. One participant from a Virginia county fire department predicts that it will enable them “to spot emerging trends and needs in real time, rather than waiting for the months and years that it currently takes.”
Dustin McDonald, Battalion Chief-EMS Compliance for the Springdale, Arkansas, Fire Department said the system’s dynamic and expansive capacity is a game changer. “To have a repository of data that is able to be viewed at a local, regional, and national level will help departments make decisions based on real-world situations, not just the latest, greatest internet video someone has seen,” McDonald said.
After the pilot phase was completed, Version 1 of NERIS was launched and an additional 105 agencies were onboarded through the end of 2024. The goal now is to roll the system out to 27,000 fire departments nationwide and have it fully operational by the end of 2026. Those who participated in the pilot will continue using the system as they did during the initial testing period, but will also take on train-the-trainer roles—helping to expand community education and awareness based on their experience and serving as advocates for broader adoption.
“The NERIS program demonstrates our ability to do advanced and rapid R&D to support a major modernization program, achieve numerous efficiencies across all levels of government, and fulfill a critical need for the Department,” Alexander said. “This collaboration has allowed us to innovate with a Department of Homeland Security component and a larger stakeholder base, particularly the fire service and first responder community, on its ongoing experimentation and advancement of capabilities, including emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence, which makes the capabilities more meaningful and useful. What is even more exciting is a new innovation and technology ecosystem emerging, leveraging the NERIS platform and data services with the potential to spur new, value-added services and solutions beneficial to the disaster resilience and first responder community.”
The original announcement can be found here.
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Originally published New Platform to Modernize National Fire Data and Intelligence on by https://www.hstoday.us/subject-matter-areas/emergency-preparedness/new-platform-to-modernize-national-fire-data-and-intelligence/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=new-platform-to-modernize-national-fire-data-and-intelligence at Homeland Security
Originally published Homeland Security
