Introduction While there are certainly incentives for fire departments to participate in the National Fire Incident Reporting System (NFIRS), it is both optional and self-reported. As it is optional, not all fire departments participate. As the system relies on self-reporting, information can be inaccurate or omitted either through lack of quality control or via electronic reporting errors. I’d like to take a few moments to explore these problems. We’ll discuss how they are detected and address how they affect the ways that NFIRS data should be interpreted.
Introduction Data from the National Fire Incident Reporting System (NFIRS) is now available from the U.S. Fire Administration (USFA) for 2015. The agency collects data reported from the majority of fire departments across the country. While working with fire departments, in my current role, I’ve observed that most reporting agencies provide detailed information about every incident along with times associated with each of the incident’s responding units. Additional details accompany serious fires, mutual aid responses, casualties (injuries and deaths), and assorted special circumstances (such as hazardous materials and wildfires).
Introduction At first glance, census data should be unrelated to public safety data. At its heart, the U.S. Census Bureau gathers population data.1 However, population data provides important context for understanding other measured quantities. Moreover, it allows comparisons between cities, counties, or states, of varying size.
The Census Bureau recently released a new set of population estimates last month. For many uses, a location’s total population is adequate. Nevertheless, for specific research applications, it can be useful to separate the population by age, sex, and race.
Basic Information The FBI released their annual report on Crime in the U.S. for 2015 last September. It took a little longer than last year for an improved data set (36789) to appear on the NACJD website.
As I mentioned in a previous post, the main advantage of this data set is that it includes counts of offenses cleared for each reporting agency along with offenses reported. If you would like to have a conversation, there are reasons why this information may be inaccurate for most agencies in Washington state.
Introduction & Critique Atlanta Boston Part II: 911 Calls New Orleans LA & Los Angeles CA (later this month) Introduction & Critique The Police Data Initiative website contains data supplied by 135 participating agencies as of today’s date. There is likely an agency near you that you might recognize.
In late 2015, the Tucson Police Department’s Lieutenant Myron “Ron” Holubiak brought the Public Safety Open Data Portal to my attention.
It’s common for citizens to be interested in local crime rates either personally or professionally. Most local law enforcement agencies report monthly crime statistics to city officials and/or residents as well as to a state agency. The state then aggregates the data and forwards it to the FBI as part of the Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) program. The FBI annually releases a report on crime. The most recent was called Crime in the United States 2014 which was released on September 28, 2015.
Hi everyone.
As a data analyst specializing in public safety for CPSM, I come across National Fire Incident Reporting System (NFIRS) data pretty regularly. Usually, I examine a single fire department at a time, but it’s also collected nationally by the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
After it’s collected, a portion of the information is provided to interested researchers for review. You request the data and it arrives via US Mail on a CD.