NFIRS Wildland Module

The National Fire Incident Reporting System (NFIRS) is the world's largest, national, annual database of fire incident information. It is also an all-incident reporting system, collecting data beyond fires to include the full range of fire department activity on a national scale. Fire departments may report through NFIRS electronically or by submitting paper forms.

After responding to an incident, fire department personnel complete one or more of the NFIRS "modules" or forms. The information in these modules describes the type of incident; where it occurred; the resources used to mitigate it and how; losses; and other information designed specifically to understand the nature and causes of the incident.

Historically, NFIRS data have not proven useful in understanding the nature and magnitude of the wildland fire problem. The optional Wildland Fire Module, in conjunction with the Basic Module and other optional modules, attempts to rectify this problem by capturing data about the number of acres burned, the type of materials involved, the conditions that contributed to the ignition and spread of wildland fires, and the resources needed to control or extinguish them.

The purpose of the Wildland Fire Module is to document reportable wildland fires, defined as any fire involving vegetative fuels, including a prescribed fire that occurs in the wildland or urban-wildland interface areas, including those fires that threaten or consume structures.

Prescribed fires are included in this definition of reportable fires to better understand the role of fire in the wildland ecosystem.

The Wildland Fire Module permits wildland fires to be profiled in detail for resource allocation, incident management, and fire impact analysis.

For more information on NFIRS and the Wildland Fire Module, please visit the NFIRS Web site.