GFD opens its doors to area departments

This week, Graafschap Fire Department hosted an informational demonstration of a new fire reporting system. The United States Fire Administration (USFA) has developed “NERIS” to replace “NFIRS” as the national reporting program for all incidents.

For us, it involves a different platform to enter the same information we always have. There are several proprietary programs that offer the reporting software. GFD uses Fire Programs to record data including emergency call reports, inventories, service, repairs, and many other items. It also tracks training and staff information.

Chris Mageria, Vice President of Sales at Fire Programs, came to our station and presented their new adaptation of current software to match the new national reporting system. He went step-by-step entering a “report” into the new system. Fire departments from around Allegan County and up to 3 hours away made the trip to our training room. These departments all subscribe to the same platform with Fire Programs.

Per the USFA, “NERIS will empower the fire and emergency services community by equipping them with an empirical basis for decision-making. It will provide the community with reliable predictive analytics to support enhanced preparedness and response to all-hazard incidents, wildland urban interface events, community risk reduction efforts and associated resilience and mitigation efforts, and future pandemic emergency response resource preparedness.”

Basically, this data collected and categorized by the USFA will aid us in determining needs of the community. Some of this data was used to create the Community Risk Reduction program at GFD. On a bigger scale, NERIS will help determine resource funding and will also be used when grants are applied for to determine actual needs. Graafschap Fire Department is proud to be part of a much larger effort to provide safe first-response service to the United States of America.