Fire Incident Report
Effectively tell fire incident stories with comprehensive reporting
Effectively tell fire incident stories with comprehensive reporting
Published 15 Mar 2022
A fire incident report is a document used by fire department personnel or fire safety officers to provide a narrative around the cause of a fire incident, damage or injuries caused, and lives lost, if any. Fire incident reports are also required by law as a means to obtain crucial fire safety information and help improve fire prevention initiatives.
This fire incident report form template can be used as documentation and notification of any fire-related incidents. It aims to provide a narrative around the cause of a fire incident, damage or injuries caused, and lives lost, if any. With this fire department incident report template, you can:
View the PDF report to see a fire incident report sample.
In the United States, fire incident reports are required to be submitted to the National Fire Incident Reporting System (NFIRS), the largest database of fire incidents in the world. Managed by the U.S. Fire Administration (USFA), NFIRS allows 23,000 fire departments in the US to use a uniformed way of fire incident reporting.
Fire incident reports are not just mere documentation of fire-related incidents; they help fire service units build on their baseline of fire safety data, make analyses of circumstances and trends, and improve fire safety strategies to help reduce loss of life and property caused by fire incidents.
Further, fire incident reports provide value by:
While the fire incident requires basic information about the fire incident location, the potential cause, properties damaged, people injured and/or lives lost, the fire investigation report dives deeper into details surrounding the fire incident.
The fire investigation report is used, in collaboration with an investigative team, to help determine whether the event is accidental or criminal and document extensive analysis of contributing factors and statements made by witnesses.
To write a good report on a fire incident, the fire safety personnel should ensure that the fire incident report:
Further, firefighting personnel can adopt the F.I.R.E.S. method of fire incident and investigation report writing to help effectively meet these characteristics of a good report.
What information was given at dispatch? What was the weather like? What was the brief on the initial report? Which commands were given? These types of questions help form the report and help remind you of important details down the road.
What directions were given to responding units? Was forced entry needed to address the emergency? How was care delivered to occupants who were injured? Recording accurate details of these actions in your incident report will prove to be important in defending a fire emergency response when being questioned years later.
Did you make a rescue or lead occupants to safety? Was suppression of the fire achieved with the handline selected? What happened to the smoke once ventilation was established? These are sample questions that the fire incident report should answer in summary. If questions arise at a later time, the details of the responses may be the only requisite to get accurate information about the incident.
An evaluation of the incident scene and the end result is the next step. Did you encounter a hydrant that failed to function (severe weather or damage)? Were there parking or access issues, crowd control, hydrants across six lanes of busy traffic? Taking note of the external factors that affected the fire incident response not only describes the incident but also produces a historical reference for fire safety issues encountered that require code or legislative changes.
Last but certainly not least is the section on special statements. What was done prior to leaving? To whom was the scene turned over to? Was it the police, the homeowner, or the fire investigation unit? This is also a good avenue to list any issues that played a role in the fire incident.
The full effect of firefighting response efforts can only be reaped if fire incident data are correct, well-documented, shared, and analyzed. Through accurate and comprehensive fire incident reports, firefighting service units can achieve this goal.
With iAuditor by SafetyCulture, fire service units can have a reliable tool which they can use on-the-go to quickly produce complete and quality fire incident reports. With the iAuditor reporting app, firefighting personnel can:
Use this fire investigation report to create a summary of a fire incident. This template can be used through a collaboration with the investigative team to know the root cause of fire, whether it is accidental or criminal, describe factors and problems that may contribute to it, document interviews from the witnesses and completing the report by writing recommendations and detailing evidences through pictures.
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