The United States Fire Administration's National Fire Data Center (NFDC) will be adopting a new schedule for changes to the National Fire Incident Reporting System (NFIRS) design specification. The current bi-annual change schedule will be modified in favor of a schedule that will allow for changes on an annual basis. The new schedule will better align with the calendar year data collection cycle adopted by most states and is a direct result of a resolution passed by the National Fire Information Council's (NFIC) general membership at their Annual Meeting in Salt Lake City, Utah, on October 21, 2002.

The resolution passed by NFIC reads as follows:

• "To recommend to the US Fire Administration a one-year cycle for any changes to the NFIRS system. Additionally:
• The annual changes would correspond with the calendar year (would be effective on January 1 of any given year); and
• The change process would be managed so that everyone affected would have the changes prior to their effective date (to allow time for them to be incorporated into software.
• The adopted resolution also requested that the USFA implement a means to ensure that incidents that have been validated by the federal client tool would remain valid regardless of subsequent changes in the rules."

Changes to the NFIRS specifications will now be released on the first business day in September of each year with those changes taking effect on January 1. This schedule will give vendors three (3) months to make the necessary changes and distribute software updates. The next scheduled release for changes to the NFIRS specifications will be September 3, 2003. These changes will be implemented on January 1, 2004.

The NFDC will also be working to find the best technical solution to accommodate the request that incidents that have been validated by the federal client tool would remain valid regardless of subsequent changes in the rules.

The Design Documentation is posted at the NFIRS Design Documentation Page. The versioning scheme for the Design Documentation is the year of the release, the one digit month of the release and the NFIRS version; for example, 2002.2.NFIRS 5.0.

This notice was originally posted November 22, 2002