NERIS is Upon Us: What Fire Chiefs Need to Know for 2026

Published about 2 months ago • 1 min read

Hello Reader,

The National Emergency Response Information System (NERIS) is here in mere days. To help you prepare, here are the hard deadlines and bare minimum compliance steps you need to know.

Key Deadlines

January 1, 2026: All new incident reporting must be done through NERIS. No new incidents for 2026 can be submitted to the old NFIRS system.
January 31, 2026: This is the absolute final day to make any edits or modifications to your 2025 (or earlier) incident data within NFIRS.
February 2026: The NFIRS system will be decommissioned permanently.

Bare Minimum Compliance for a Smooth Transition:

Complete Onboarding: Ensure your department has completed the NERIS onboarding process. This involves setting up your department's account and assigning administrators.
Export Historical Data: NERIS will not automatically import your old NFIRS data. Your department is responsible for exporting historical incident data from NFIRS to comply with local records retention policies.
Choose Your Reporting Tool: Decide whether you will use the government-provided NERIS application or a NERIS-compliant third-party software vendor. The right software will be your bridge to compliance.

The good news is that this transition doesn't have to be complicated, especially for your firefighters. The right software can handle the complexities behind the scenes. Alternatively, you can keep compliant by using the NERIS website, but that is no free lunch. Check out Responserack if you'd like to make this painless.

Read the full post for more details on how to ensure a smooth migration for your department.

The bare minimum to know for NERIS 2026

Some recent / helpful NERIS articles:

Getting to grips with NERIS for 2026

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