Data sources and methodology

Incident facts come from the NERIS Public Incident Basics dataset. We retain source snapshots and revision history, normalize county references against official five-digit FIPS codes, and never move source-reported coordinates. Geoapify may reverse geocode an approved reported point into a separately stored estimated address for authenticated Browse and detail views; that estimate never replaces a NERIS source fact.

Classification

Versioned, reviewed rules map known provider classifications into plain-language building-fire categories. Unknown values enter administrator review and do not qualify for alerts by default.

Timing and corrections

The explorer uses a server-calculated rolling 30-day UTC window. Source updates create immutable revision history; changed classifications, counties, locations, or damage fields may produce one correction alert when enabled.

FireLoss Scout is an independent presentation of source-reported public data. The local agency retains the official incident record.