NFIRS 5.0 software development procedures

Thank you for your interest in developing software for the U.S. Fire Administration’s (USFA) National Fire Incident Reporting System (NFIRS). To get started, follow these four steps:

• Register your company/organization and software to receive a vendor ID and a software ID. All transaction files processed at the national level are required to have these two IDs embedded in the transaction file as specified in the design documentation.
• Develop software using the NFIRS 5.0 design documentation and then test your output transaction files using the vendor validation tool.
• Notify us when your product development is completed and tested to be compatible with the national NFIRS 5.0 database standard. Send your contact information, vendor ID and software ID to FEMA-NFIRSHELP@fema.dhs.gov
• After you notify us, we will add your company/organization to the Active Vendor list. Fire departments and states use this list as a resource when shopping for a software product.

Monitoring and ensuring data quality

USFA no longer certifies vendor transaction files for the NFIRS 5.0. We instead maintain a list of software vendors that registered with us to obtain NFIRS 5.0 development materials and the vendor validation tool. Because we don’t certify vendor transaction files, it is important for state agencies, fire departments and vendors to continue monitoring data quality issues. Issues with NFIRS vendor files are addressed by the fire department, the state involved and your company/organization.

• Fire departments are responsible for using the current version of your software and ensuring data files remain compatible with the national system.
• State agencies are the authority for state reporting compliance and are also responsible for ensuring data files are compatible.
• USFA acts as a resource for states to identify data problems at the national level.

Vendors should retest software after revisions or version changes. If testing files using the vendor validation tool, please review the files listed below for validation errors and/or rejected transaction information.

• Output file filename.out.
• Log file of exported records filename.log.
• Validation error file filename.err.
• Rejected transactions file filename.bad.

More development resources for vendors

• NFIRS documentation (design documentation)
• NFIRS Help Desk
• Training and coding help