In January 2012 the National Wildland Fire Coordinating Group (NWCG) issued an All-Hazards Intent Document defining wildland fire agencies support to all-hazards incidents. The document stated, “The National Incident Management System (NIMS) is the foundation of all response. NWCG principles, procedures, and publications will comply with and support NIMS. NWCG expects that all local, State, and Federal response agencies and organizations will comply with NIMS.” The document further stated that, “NWCG supports the ongoing development and maintenance of wildland fire systems to be adaptable for all-hazards response.”
In part to meet the new NIMS standards, as well as other mandated requirements, in 2012 the Situation Report / 209 (Sit/209) application underwent a significant redesign. The primary goals of the redesign are to meet more stringent federal agency IT and security requirements, as well as to provide users of the application a more functional and robust reporting system. New features have been added to the 209 application, including:
- Implementing a design refresh as part of the Software Development Lifecycle Cycle (SDLC) process.
- Meeting new and on-going technical and mandated security requirements (for example, user and password management through the NESS integrated LDAP, C&A Self-Assessment, secure coding.) Also, implement the Fire and Aviation Management (F&AM) single sign-on in conjunction with the NESS common user authentication project.
- Replacing the existing “canned” Sit/209 reports with the IBM® Cognos® reporting package required by the Forest Service (similar functionality to the ROSS reports software package).
- Incorporating the NIMS 209 form into the 209 application. This allows incident management teams and others to better report all-hazard incidents. Additional data fields within the application allow non-fire incidents to be more accurately reported.
- Enhancing the application’s capability to integrate with other existing or emerging systems of record, such as IRWIN, WFDSS and other applications.
In order to ensure that the information submitted is as complete as possible, please follow the guidelines in this User’s Guide when completing or reviewing 209s for submission into this database.
System Function
The intent of the 209 application is for ICS-209 form information to be entered at the incident or the dispatch center responsible for the incident. Once incident information is approved, the ICS-209 can be accessed and utilized at the local, geographic, and national levels.
209s should be completed according to each Geographic Area’s Mobilization Guide. Please refer to Chapter 60 of your Geographic Area’s Mobilization Guide and the National Interagency Mobilization Guide for more specific information on reporting requirements for 209 reports.
System Users
Typically, local dispatch personnel and incident management teams compile data for the 209s. Agency managers, information officers, and decision-makers access completed reports. The data within the 209 system is accessed from users within as well as outside of the wildland fire/all-risk community.
User Support
Technical support for the 209 application can be found through the National Fire and Aviation Management Web Applications site (FAMWEB), or at the Fire Applications Help Desk. Contact the Help Desk at (866) 224-7677 or via e-mail at: helpdesk@dms.nwcg.gov Normal business hours are 07:30 am – 4:00 pm Mountain Time. Outside of this time period, leave a message and the on-call duty officer will return your call.
An application or system outage should be reported immediately to the FAMWEB Help Desk by phone. If the outage is affecting fire reporting, inform the Help Desk that this is a “fire emergency” and instruct them to immediately elevate the ticket to “Level 2.” More specific instructions on reporting application and system outages are available at: http://www.predictiveservices.nifc.gov/intelligence/How_To_Handle_Sit-209_Outages.pdf
Troubleshooting
Specific instructions for completing many of the data entry and application tasks are explained in this User’s Guide. Additional troubleshooting instructions are outlined in specific sections of this User’s Guide. Please follow the instructions in this User’s Guide carefully before contacting the Fire Applications Help Desk or Geographic Area Coordination Center.
You should save your ICS 209 data frequently. By saving frequently, you will not lose any saved data in the event you lose internet connection while in the application.