The Assistance to Firefighters Grant, or AFG, is a FEMA grant program that helps eligible fire departments, nonaffiliated EMS organizations, and fire training academies fund critical needs such as equipment, protective gear, vehicles, training, and other emergency response resources. FEMA describes AFG as a program intended to help meet the firefighting and emergency response needs of fire and EMS organizations.

As part of the AFG application process, departments often need to gather incident, response, and operational data from their reporting systems. This article provides a field mapping reference between NFIRS and NERIS to help departments identify where commonly requested grant-related data may be found.

The U.S. Fire Administration has transitioned national fire incident reporting from NFIRS to NERIS. USFA notes that 2025 was a hybrid reporting year, with incidents able to be submitted to either NFIRS or NERIS, and that 2026 incident reporting is exclusively in NERIS. Because of this transition, some departments may have part of their reporting period in NFIRS and the remainder in NERIS. This mapping table is intended to help departments review both data sources more easily and prepare the information they may need for AFG-related reporting.

First Due is developing additional AFG-focused reports to make this process easier. Until those reports are available, use the table below as a reference for locating comparable data fields across NFIRS and NERIS.