Gather Incident Information

Most incident information will be readily available on your Resource Order. The main attribute that you will need that may not be readily available is the IRWIN ID. 

IRWIN stands for Integrated Reporting of Wildland Fire Information. It was created to be a central repository for basic fire information to reduce redundant data entry and improve the consistency of information.

The IRWIN ID is a required attribute for every feature created in the NIFS. The IRWIN ID is used to tie each feature to its parent incident. For Event Polygon features, the IRWIN ID is used to join the perimeter with the incident information to create the publicly available perimeter data.

The IRWIN ID is a Global Unique Identifier (GUID). A GUID has 32 randomly generated characters that will look something like this: {5BFC1A52-D8A9-4BFF-AB98-225D7B4BA4A1}

After locating the IRWIN ID through one of the methods outlined below, best practice is to add it to the GeoOps File Namer spreadsheet in the \tools folder of the GeoOps Incident Directory Structure.

When in doubt, always check with the Situation Unit Leader (SITL) for confirmation of any ID.

Auto-Generated Triangles in the National Incident Feature Service

For each new IRWIN wildfire record, a triangle is automatically generated at the reported Lat/Long with the reported acreage in Event Polygon.

The triangle will have the IRWIN ID populated so the geometry can be easily replaced with the first accurate perimeter.

IRWIN ID in ArcGIS Online (AGOL)

Log into the NIFC ArcGIS Online Organization and use the IRWIN ID Search App to search by incident name or zoom manually to each active incident. Clicking on a point will display the IRWIN ID in the pop-up.

Incident Information on Resource Order

Incident Name

Found in box 2. Fairly straightforward, this is the name of the incident – Peak 2 in this example.

This is the name you would use for the IncidentName attribute.

Unique Fire ID

Found in box 3. The first half of the Unique Fire ID is the Unit ID for the agency responsible for the incident. In this example CO-WRF, Colorado White River National Forest. The second half is the Local Incident ID, in this case, 000236.

Best practice is to add the Unit ID and Local Incident IDs to the GeoOps File Namer spreadsheet in the \tools folder of the GeoOps Incident Directory Structure.

Incident Action Plan (IAP)

If you have already arrived at the Incident Command Post (ICP) and the incident is beyond the first operational period, much of the information you will need will be available in the IAP.

At a minimum, the Incident Name and Number will be on most Incident Command System (ICS) forms.