Creating an Incident

Fires are known as incidents in WFDSS. Incidents are either populated via the IRWIN system or entered manually by users assigned the role of Dispatcher or Author. Incidents can be created manually in two ways. You can:

• Use the Create a New Incident tool on the Intelligence map view, or
• Use the Create New Incident link above the Incident List.

When you create a new incident on the Intelligence map, you do not need to enter the latitude or longitude; click a location on the Intelligence map to determine an incident's location. You can update the coordinates later, when needed. When you use the Create New Incident link above the Incident list to create an incident, you must enter a latitude and longitude.

When you create an incident, you must select one of the Incident Type radio buttons to maintain fire reporting integrity:

• Wildfire: Refers to single incident fire events. Wildland fire incident types are the only incident types to be added to the Historic Wildfires layers.
• Prescribed: Refers to fire events that are set in order to achieve management plan objectives.
• Other: Refers to all other fire events.

You can display multiple incidents on a Group Map, but WFDSS does not accommodate the management of complexes. WFDSS maintains separate data for all incidents. If you choose to complex, designate all involved incidents as Other. This will ensure that incident reporting is not compromised.

Required fields of data are indicated by asterisks and some auto-populate. The fields that you must develop inputs for include:

• Incident Name (at least two characters in length), 
• Responsible Unit ID,
• Local Fire Number (6-10 characters and alphanumeric), and
• Discovery Time.

You can always return to the Edit Incident page to make edits, or add further information at a later time. National and GA Editors are the only ones who can edit the Jurisdictional Unit at Point of Origin field.

Using the WFDSS application you can also create and manage incidents for any fire within 50 km of the US Border of Canada and Mexico (for Alaska it is within 10 miles.) The Intelligence map displays new state layer maps for Canada and Mexico.

Once an incident is created, incident information can easily be edited on the Incident Information page. Dispatchers and Authors frequently visit this page to update an incident's latitude and longitude, size, and affected jurisdictional agencies.

WARNING: Administrative units should not create incidents in Production that have been previously entered into a Computer Aided Dispatch system (such as WildCAD 6) or the 209 system. IRWIN program populates this incident data automatically into WFDSS. Creating these incidents manually will result in duplicate incidents in WFDSS.

You must have the following information before you can create an incident in WFDSS:

• Location of incident (preferably latitude and longitude)
• Discovery date and time
• Name of incident

 

To prevent duplicate entries for incidents, WFDSS warns you if the incident you are creating is potentially a duplicate and meets both of the following criteria:

• The incident is within 1/2 mile of an existing incident.
• The discovery date and time are within 6 hours of the existing incident.

The list of suspected duplicate incidents appears, and you can review each to verify whether the incident is, in fact, a duplicate. If you determine that it is a new incident, you can click Create New Incident to continue entering information about the incident.

Note: WFDSS generates an email to Incident Owners when an incident is not contained after three days and there is no published decision. Click the link in the email to navigate to the incident so you can provide updated information.

To create an incident using the Intelligence Map view:

1. Choose Intelligence tab > Intelligence Map. The map of your designated geographic area appears.

   Note: It might require several seconds for the maps to load the first time you go to the Map view. Refreshing and zooming can also take a few seconds, depending on how many layers you have turned on and what resolution you are working with.

2. Click the Fire icon. The cursor changes to an arrow.
3. Place the arrow on the location of the fire, then click.

   A small yellow circle appears on the map in the location of the fire, and the latitude and longitude are automatically entered in the appropriate fields in the Create Incident pane.

4. On the left side of the screen in the Create Incident pane, click the Incident Name field and type the name of the incident.
5. Click Next. The Create New Incident page appears. A pop-up map displays the incident. You can use tools to pan or zoom within the map to verify fire location.
6. Enter a Discovery Time. All other necessary fields have been auto-filled for you.
7. Verify that the following information auto-filled correctly:
   • Unit ID (this is from the SMA layer)
   • Responsible Unit at Point of Origin
   • Jurisdictional Agency
8. Enter any additional information that you have about the fire, Unique Fire Identifier, Incident Cause, Incident Size, Landscape Data Source, and so on. This information can be entered or edited later as more accurate data are available.
9. Click Create. The incident is saved to the database and added to the Incident List, and the Edit Incident Information appears.

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Last updated on 2/14/2014 4:25:18 PM.

To create an incident using the data entry fields:

1. From within the WFDSS application, choose the Incident tab. The Incident List appears.
2. Click Create New Incident. The Create New Incident page appears. A pop-up map displays the incident. You can use tools to pan or zoom within the map to verify fire location.
3. In the Incident Name field, type the name of the incident.

   Enter the Latitude and Longitude for the incident in either decimal degrees or degrees-minutes-seconds. The option you did not choose auto-populates.

   A pop-up map of the incident location displays on the page. Use the tools to zoom or pan to map features.

   Note: The latitude and longitude must be entered with NAD83 datum to get an accurate location in WFDSS.

4. Enter any additional information that you have about the fire, such as  Jurisdictional Agency(s), Unique Fire Identifier, Size, and so on. This information can be entered or edited later as more accurate data are available. If you are uncertain about the Landscape Data Source to select, click the help icon to the right of the data source.
5. Click Create. The incident is saved to the database and added to the Incident List, and the Edit Incident Information appears.

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Last updated on 2/14/2014 4:25:18 PM.

In This Section Incident Setup Selecting an Incident Type To create an incident using the map view: To create an incident using the data entry fields:

See Also Incident Privileges Setting Incident Default Preferences About IRWIN Data Exchange Point of Origin Values Inventory To answer the security question: Preventing Duplicate Incidents Editing Incident Information Deleting an Incident Viewing Incident Contact Information Viewing the FMU List for an Incident Viewing Incident History

Reference Field Descriptions Glossary Resources Spatial Data Reference Landscape Data Source Reference Relative Risk Reference Organization Assessment Reference Fire Behavior Reference About the WFDSS Decision Editors