By Doug Nelson, State Fire Marshal
As we are wrapping up another year, we have some great opportunities on the horizon.
The American Association of Insurance Services (AAIS) has announced the release of its Fire Loss and Mitigation Evaluation Score (FLAMES). FLAMES is another (in addition to others) evaluation score that insurers across the country may use to evaluate local fire protection and risk mitigation outcomes. This is not mandatory for any fire departments, we are just letting you know this information so you are aware in case you are contacted by this organization. FLAMES consists of a fire loss portion and a mitigation evaluation portion. For further information on this you can visit their website at FLAMES - Aaisonline Wordpress or contact them directly at FLAMES@aaisonline.com.
The State Fire Marshal’s Office in coordination with the West Fargo Fire Department, ND Firefighter’s Association, and the ND Fire Prevention Association will be hosting a free training from the American Fireworks Standards Laboratory (AFSL). This will be a one-day training focused on fireworks regulation on Thursday, January 29th in West Fargo. Jerry Wingard, an experienced regulator of fireworks will be presenting “AFSL North Dakota Fire Marshal Fireworks Training”. Topics planned to be covered include: importance of local and state authorities, AFSL test program, research, requirements, packaging, shipping, evaluation of a fireworks accident scene, and fireworks disposal. We are working to get the registration for this open as soon as possible. We will post updates to our website calendar of events (Home | North Dakota Fire Marshal). To learn more about the AFSL and what they do you can visit their website at www.afsl.org.
Two other events to watch for in January include the adoption of the new State Building Code, which is scheduled for January 1st, 2026. This code adoption sets the path and schedule for our new fire code which should follow on July 1st, 2026. Community Risk Reduction (CRR) week is also scheduled for January 19th – 25th. This event brings awareness to the differing ways that fire departments serve their communities. Please check our website for updates on fire prevention events Upcoming Events | North Dakota Fire Marshal.
As most of you are aware by now, we are in full transition to NERIS in North Dakota. A special thank you to the Wing Fire Protection District for getting the very first incident reported into NERIS for our state! Way to go and thanks to everyone who is jumping in to on-board and start reporting. Please visit our website at Fire Incident Reporting | North Dakota Fire Marshal or contact our main office if you have questions on how to get started. Currently, we are at 44 verified fire departments that have on-boarded, 5 fire departments reporting incidents, and 23 incidents reported in the system. We hope to begin working with NERIS in the spring to develop a link directly from our NERIS homepage to our website, so we can display our dashboard up to date and live at all times.
Things continue to move fast for the fire service in North Dakota. I hope you can find time to slow down and safely spend time with your community this holiday season.