Best Practices for Administration
Top Tip: Above all else, coach your officers and/or firefighters to complete incident reports as soon as the call is terminated (perhaps back at the station), or shortly thereafter. The best reports are fresh reports, with full accountability and details. Fresh reports get reviewed and improved by firefighters and get engagement from others. Stale reports do not get reviewed and quickly lose accuracy. (Other stages can wait, this one cannot.)
Next to Top Tip: A volunteer administrator focuses on the report lifecycle, on working with homeowners & insurance companies and ISO reviews, and manages a clean report set. Scour your community of retired firefighters, friends and family, and others. Share this workload so it doesn't burden Chief officers. Think "short term (training) pain for long term gain".
Additional Best Practices
- Have multiple administrators so they can back each other up. Don't let administration become the burden of one person, or they may fall behind.
- Involve your officers; request they complete reports upon incident termination and provide good narrative.
- Involve your membership; more reviewers make better reports. Firefighters enjoy seeing their numbers, and are engaged by incidents they miss. Invite your membership even if you don't train them, so they get updates and notifications.
- Intentionally transition from paper to digital. If you cannot move all your responders to digital reports allow paper reports, but enforce one or the other. You need a report for each incident, don't
- Get any reports “preliminary” (or "placeholder" from CAD) completed by firefighters ASAP.
- Engage your Firefighters in their numbers, and more, have them study the reports for accuracy, and lessons learned.
- Weekly or sooner complete reports for the department record.
- Bi-Weekly, or no later than monthly, prepare incidents for NFIRS.
- File NFIRS monthly. (Some states/territories require and enforce this.)
See more on keeping up with your NFIRS administration.