We continue to monitor the messages from the Federal level as we prepare to transition the North Dakota fire service incident reporting over to the National Emergency Response Information System (NERIS). As the year pushes on, we will be sending updates out through this blog and on our website as further information becomes available.
Moving out of NFIRS (the old system)
The National Fire Incident Reporting System (NFIRS) will cease accepting incidents for the 2024 calendar year on April 1, 2025. Please make sure that all of your 2024 incidents are complete and released to NFIRS by that date. It will be replaced by the National Emergency Response Information System, or NERIS. This transition is scheduled to take place throughout 2025. All NFIRS data will not be able to be updated or edited past December 31, 2025. All data will become inaccessible through NFIRS (the old system) on.... Our office is working to download all of our data going back to 2020.
As we transition to NERIS (the new system)
The State Fire Marshal’s Office will still require fire departments to report fires as stated under North Dakota Century Codes 18-01-06 and 18-01-04. This means that fire departments will still need to report every 30 days (if you have an incident to report) and in a manner consistent with the requirements of the United States Fire Administration’s fire data collection system. Our office will still have access to all state-wide data and will report that each month and in our fire statistics report. Until your fire department or district has transitioned to NERIS, please continue to report in NFIRS.
Other important points to be aware of:
- NERIS went live to select fire departments effective January 1, 2025. West Fargo FD, Mandan FD and Rolla Fire Department are the only fire departments signed up at this point. We have not heard if any other fire departments will be allowed to sign up early or when.
- All other fire departments will need to start the year reporting into NFIRS, and will transition somewhere in the middle of the year when notified. Right now, our mass transition is scheduled for November 2025.
- NERIS questions and concerns should be directed to their Help Desk (located on their website) or at NERIS@UL.ORG.
- Please visit our website page here for further information on how to prepare your fire department/district for the NERIS transition.
- As soon as our office is notified, we will start working with you on your transition.
- NFIRS is scheduled to be shut down on January 1st, 2026, so we will need everyone into the new NERIS system by December 31st, 2025, at the latest.
We know that many of you report using a third-party software; you will need to check with your software to learn if and how they are working through the transition as well.
If you would like to look deeper into the details of the NERIS transition, please visit the United States Fire Administration’s website at National Emergency Response Information System (NERIS). As always, if you have any questions or concerns regarding this or any other fire safety topic, please contact our office at infofm@nd.gov or (701)328-5555.