What is as true in a fire department as in a Fortune 500 corporation? Data drives decision-making.
For the fire service, this data is collected in the National Fire Incident Reporting System (NFIRS). It’s critical to make sure the data collected is complete and accurate because this information is used at all levels — from local budget development to the identification of national preparedness initiatives.
Notice of enforcement: NFIRS 2015 specification cycle
To improve data quality and consistency, we are enforcing several 2015 specification cycle rules previously not enforced by the NFIRS validation process.
Review and Assessment of Data Quality in the National Fire Incident Reporting System
This report provides an assessment of NFIRS data quality, both at the state and data element levels, and highlights data quality checks and mechanisms available within the system.
National Fire Data Center internal data quality checks
The National Fire Data Center (NFDC) works to identify NFIRS data errors and to assist states and fire departments in fixing them.
Accurate fire incident reports are important. They can impact your department just as much as the entire United States. When incidents are documented for the NFIRS, there is the potential for data entry errors — mistakes that can alter the intended meaning of the information.
Several mistakes across a region may not be significant, but many mistakes in the same region — or worse, across the entire country — can dramatically affect the meaning of the data. The same result occurs when data is generalized, such as the overuse of the codes for unknown, none or other.
Since the goal is to provide the best data possible, the NFDC developed a series of internal data quality reports to identify some of these data errors and assist states and fire departments in resolving them. Below are 3 identified trends in the data, along with a brief discussion of each.
Section G2 of the Basic Module collects information about the estimated dollar losses and values of property and contents. This is a crucial component of data collection since it is an indicator of fire impact within the U.S. It is important to note that these are only estimations, and the best estimate of the fire department is acceptable. Each field allows a dollar value up to $999,999,999.
What the NFDC looks for: Every incident with a dollar loss value greater than $10,000,000.
Issues identified: Extremely high values and negative dollar values.
How to resolve: Data entry should be made carefully and checked to ensure accuracy.
Plus-one codes are codes that fire departments and states can use to record incident information in regionally-specific detail. Since the plus-one (extra character) is not used in national level analyses, it can appear as if there is a duplicate Actions Taken code (Section F) in the Basic Module.
What the NFDC looks for: Plus-one codes that duplicate the NFIRS code or base code. In this case, the base code length for Actions Taken is 2 characters, e.g., 86 (investigate). This occurs in multiple-coded fields, most often in the Actions Taken section (since up to 3 actions can be added per incident).
Issues identified: Nearly every example of a duplicate Actions Taken code was due to using a base code and a plus-one code based on the same NFIRS or base code.
How to resolve: Refrain from using a plus-one code in the same field along with its base code.
Section I3 of the Structure Fire Module looks at building height (i.e., the number of stories above and below grade). This data element is required within the Structure Fire Module.
What the NFDC looks for: Stories greater than 30 above grade and greater than 5 below grade.
Issues identified: Unusually high values for both above grade and below grade stories.
How to resolve: Data entry should be made carefully and checked to ensure accuracy.
Coding guidelines to improve data quality
Formatting your incident numbers
Options for coding dates into your NFIRS incident numbers and why your incident numbers should be exclusively numeric.
Understanding the 20-minute response warning message
The purpose of the 20-minute response time warning message is to make sure that the response time is legitimate and not a data entry error.
Why getting the incident type right matters
This Incident Type field is the foundation for completing your incident report. It provides an accurate picture of the types of incidents your fire department responds to.