NERIS Incident Reporting: A Start-to-Finish Guide

You ran a call. Now you need to document it so it's accurate for your department's records and ready for NERIS. This guide walks through the incident form tab by tab, explains what NERIS actually needs, and shows you how to submit.

The Big Picture

Every incident in Command Established has five main tabs: Basic Info, Resources, Details, Files, and NERIS. You don't have to fill them out in order, but thinking about it as a timeline — what happened, who responded, and what did they find — makes the process natural.

NERIS won't accept an incident until certain fields are filled in. Rather than memorizing a checklist, use the NERIS tab — it validates your incident in real time and tells you exactly what's missing.

Basic Info — What Happened and When

This is where the incident starts. The fields here establish the timeline and location.

Incident Type

Choose at least one incident type (up to three). The type you pick determines which detail modules appear later — a structure fire triggers fire-cause and alarm fields; a medical call triggers patient-care fields.

Location

Street address, city, state, and ZIP. NERIS requires all four. If your CAD integration created the incident, this is usually pre-filled.

Incident Timeline

These are the department-level timestamps — the "when" of the call:

Getting these right matters. NERIS expects them in chronological order, and they anchor every per-unit timestamp that follows.

Call-Processing Times

Expand Call-processing times to record when the 911 call was answered and when dispatch created the call. These are optional but valuable — they measure the gap between a citizen dialing 911 and your department rolling. If your dispatch center provides them, enter them here.

Resources — Who Responded

The Resources tab tracks every apparatus and person that responded.

Per-Unit Timeline

Each apparatus card has its own set of timestamps:

Tip: "Use incident times." If a unit's times match the department-level timeline, click Use incident times to fill them in one click. It only fills empty fields — times you've already entered are left alone.

Additional Unit Fields

Expand Additional times on any apparatus card to see optional fields:

• Staging Time — when the unit staged (if it didn't go directly on scene)
• Canceled En Route — if the unit was called off before arriving

These aren't required for NERIS, but recording them gives you better data about actual response patterns.

Response Mode

Each unit has a Response Mode — Emergency or Non-Emergency. This tells NERIS whether the unit responded with lights and sirens.

Hospital Transport

If a unit transported a patient, click Hospital transport to open the transport sheet. Each transport leg records:

• At Patient — when crew contact with the patient began
• En Route to Hospital — when transport started
• Arrived at Hospital — when the unit reached the destination
• Transferred — when patient care was handed off
• Hospital Cleared — when the unit left the hospital
• Destination — which hospital or facility

You can add up to 10 transport legs per unit (one per patient or per round trip). Each leg's times should flow in order — Command Established will flag any that don't.

Personnel

Add the members who rode each unit. NERIS uses headcount to calculate staffing levels, so even if you don't track individual roles, getting the right people on the right apparatus matters.

Details — What They Found

The Details tab changes based on your incident type.

Fire Incidents

For any fire call, you'll see fire-detail fields:

• Fire Cause — what started it (cooking, electrical, fireworks, etc.)
• Area of Origin — where the fire started (kitchen, bedroom, garage, etc.)
• Heat Source, Item First Ignited, Material Contributing

Structure fires additionally ask about:

• Smoke Alarms — present? Did they activate?
• Fire Alarms — monitored system present?
• Sprinkler/Suppression — present? Did it activate?

Medical Incidents

Medical calls require at least one patient record:

• Patient evaluation and care — chief complaint, interventions, outcome
• Casualties and Rescues — for any injuries or fatalities, record the casualty type and cause

Other Incident Types

Hazmat incidents ask about disposition and whether the area was evacuated. Other types (public service, good intent, etc.) may have fewer required fields — the NERIS tab will tell you exactly what's needed.

The NERIS Tab — Validation and Submission

This is where everything comes together.

Live Validation

The NERIS tab continuously validates your saved incident against what the NERIS API will accept. You'll see one of two states:

• Green: "NERIS will accept this incident" — you're ready to submit
• Red: validation errors — each error links directly to the field that needs attention. Click Fix to jump straight there.

Important: Validation runs against the saved version of your incident. If you see an amber "unsaved edits" banner at the top, click Save changes first — your latest edits aren't being checked until they're saved.

AI Review

Beyond what NERIS technically requires, an AI review checks for data quality:

• Blockers — issues that will prevent acceptance
• Warnings — things that look wrong (e.g., a 45-minute on-scene time for a false alarm)
• Data quality — missing optional fields that would improve your reporting
• Spelling — typos in free-text fields

Each finding links to the relevant field.

Submitting

Once validation passes, click Submit to NERIS in the top bar. After a successful submission:

• The button changes to Push Update to NERIS
• A NERIS ID appears, confirming the record exists in the national system
• A Changes since last submission section shows what's different if you edit the incident later

If you edit an incident after submitting, push the update so NERIS stays in sync.

Archiving a reported incident

Archiving happens only in Command Established. NERIS has no way to withdraw a record, so an incident that has been submitted stays on file there after you archive it here, and you can no longer push corrections to it. If a submitted incident turns out to be a pager test or a call your department was never part of, correct it from the NERIS tab first (for example, file it as cancelled), then archive. Command Established will ask you to confirm before archiving any incident that has a NERIS record.

Conflicts

If someone edits the incident directly in NERIS (rare, but possible), Command Established will show the conflict. You'll need to acknowledge it before pushing your version.

Tips for Clean Data

1. Enter times as they happen. The closer to real-time, the more accurate. If you're entering times after the fact, work from your CAD log or radio timestamps.

2. Use the readiness check early. Don't wait until you're "done" to look at the NERIS tab. Open it as you go — it updates live and catches problems before you've moved on.

3. Incident type drives everything. Pick the right type first. It determines which detail modules appear and which fields NERIS requires. Changing the type later can reset detail fields.

4. One incident, multiple types. If a call involves both a fire and a medical response, add both incident types to the same incident. Don't create two separate incidents.

5. Transport legs are per unit, not per incident. If two units each transported a patient, each unit gets its own transport leg in its own apparatus card.

Related Articles

• How to Enroll Command Established in NERIS — first-time NERIS setup
• How to Code Fireworks-Related Incidents in NERIS — seasonal coding guidance