NERIS Data Dictionary — Every Field In The Public Release
45 fields per incident · Mar 2025 – Jul 2026
Counts and fill rates on this page are a fixed snapshot of the 2026-08-20 release (15,115,200 incidents, 17,201 departments). The field list and meanings do not change between releases; for current totals see the atlas.
neris.jbf.com · Source: NERIS Public Incident Basics · U.S. Fire Administration / UL FSRI · Independent and unofficial
Identity & Department
| Field | What It Is | Filled | Example |
|---|
| neris_id_incident | Unique incident ID | 100% | FD01001122|26I000070… |
| neris_id_dept | Unique fire department ID | 100% | FD01001122 |
| department_name | Fire department name | 100% | #9 Area Volunteer Fire Department |
| department_state | Department's home state | 100% | Alabama |
What Happened — Incident Type
| Field | What It Is | Filled | Example |
|---|
| type_1 | Primary incident type, three levels deep (category || subcategory || detail) | 100% | FIRE||STRUCTURE_FIRE||ROOM_AND_CONTENTS_FIRE |
| type_1_primary | Whether type 1 is flagged as the primary type | 100% | True |
| type_2 | Second incident type when one call was two things | 2.5% | FIRE||OUTSIDE_FIRE||… |
| type_3 | Third incident type | 0.1% | FIRE||OUTSIDE_FIRE||… |
| special_modifiers | Rare situation flags | <0.1% | ACTIVE_ASSAILANT |
The Response
| Field | What It Is | Filled | Example |
|---|
| unit_response_count | How many units responded | 100% | 3 |
| call_create | When the call was created (timestamp, epoch milliseconds) | 100% | 1742266020000 |
| duration | Incident duration in seconds | 100% | 5400 |
| action_and_tactics | Actions taken on scene — multi-valued list, 1 to 9 actions per incident | 83% | SUPPRESSION||STRUCTURAL_FIRE_SUPPRESSION||INTERIOR, VENTILATION||… |
| aid_direction | Mutual aid given, received, both, or none | 100% | RECEIVED |
| nonfd_aid | Non-fire-department agencies that assisted | 4.8% | ANIMAL_SERVICES |
| rescue_animal | Animals rescued (−1 means not recorded) | 16% | 1 |
Where — Location
| Field | What It Is | Filled | Example |
|---|
| x, y | Longitude / latitude of the incident, ~5 decimal places (≈1 m). 7.6 million distinct points | 100% | -86.88584, 33.50943 |
| point_origin | Where the coordinate came from: on-scene point, geocoded address, or dispatch | 99.7% | incident point |
| incident_state | State where the incident happened | 98.5% | AL |
| incident_county | County where the incident happened | 68.3% | JEFFERSON |
| civic_location | Street address — scrubbed for privacy: empty in the public release | 0% | — |
The Building — Structure Detail
| Field | What It Is | Filled | Example |
|---|
| type_location_use | What the property is: single-family, multi-family, commercial, school, etc. (≈60% of fires) | 55.7% | RESIDENTIAL||MULTI_FAMILY_LOWRISE_DWELLING |
| type_location_use__second | Secondary property use | 0.7% | COMMERCIAL||RETAIL_WHOLESALE_TRADE |
| in_use | Whether the property was in use at the time | 37.5% | True |
| intended | Whether the property was used as intended | 25.4% | True |
| type_vacancy | Vacancy status | 0.3% | ABANDONED |
| room_of_origin | Room where the fire started | 0.9% | KITCHEN |
| building_damage | Damage severity | 0.9% | MAJOR_DAMAGE |
| exposure_count | Neighboring properties the fire spread to | 100% | 0 |
| acres_burned | Acres burned (wildfire / outside fires) | 0.8% | 12.5 |
The People — Displacement
| Field | What It Is | Filled | Example |
|---|
| displacement_count | People displaced from their home (−1 means not recorded) | 15.4% | 4 |
| displacement_causes | Why they were displaced | 0.2% | STRUCTURAL_DAMAGE |
Safety Equipment — Smoke Alarms & Sprinklers
| Field | What It Is | Filled | Example |
|---|
| smoke_alarm_present | Smoke alarm present / not present (recorded on structure fires — ≈63% of them) | 4.2% | NOT_PRESENT |
| smoke_alarm_types | Alarm technology | 0.9% | PHOTOELECTRIC |
| smoke_alarm_operation | Did the alarm work | 0.4% | OPERATED_ALERTED |
| fire_suppression_present | Sprinkler / suppression system present | 3.9% | NOT_PRESENT |
| fire_suppression_types | Suppression system type | 0.2% | WET_PIPE_SPRINKLER |
| fire_suppression_operation | Did the system operate | 0.1% | OPERATED |
Hazard Flags
| Field | What It Is | Filled | Example |
|---|
| csst_hazard_flag | Corrugated stainless steel gas tubing hazard on scene | 100% | False |
| electric_hazard_flag | Electrical hazard on scene | 100% | False |
| powergen_hazard_flag | Power generation hazard (solar, battery, generator) | 100% | False |
| medical_oxygen_hazard_flag | Home medical oxygen on scene | 100% | False |
Bookkeeping
| Field | What It Is | Filled | Example |
|---|
| export_date | When the record was exported (epoch milliseconds) | 100% | 1786776611642 |
| ObjectId | Row number in the feature service | 100% | 1 |
Reading the Filled column. Percentages are of all 15,115,200 incidents in the 2026-08-20 release. Detail fields only
apply to a subset — smoke-alarm status only makes sense on structure fires (1.4% of all calls), acres burned only
on outside fires — so a low overall percentage can still be strong coverage where it matters. Incident types and
property uses are pipe-delimited hierarchies (category || subcategory || detail); several fields are multi-valued,
comma-separated lists. NERIS is onboarding: 17,201 of America's ~29,000 departments report so far.
Compiled from the NERIS Public Incident Basics open dataset · U.S. Fire Administration / UL FSRI · independent and unofficial ·
neris.jbf.com