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Dispatched but Nobody Responded: Should You Report It to NERIS?

Every volunteer department has calls where the tones drop and nobody is able to go. The most common is a medical call that EMS handles before the fire department would add anything. Someone has to decide what happens to those incident records, and the first question is whether they should be reported to NERIS at all.

Start With Your State's Rule

NERIS reporting runs through each state's fire reporting program, and states do not all treat these calls the same way. Before you submit a call no unit responded to, check what your state wants. Your state's NERIS coordinator, usually in the State Fire Marshal's office, can tell you.

What we know so far:

State Calls your department did not respond to
Tennessee Do not report. The Tennessee State Fire Marshal's Office has confirmed that if your department did not respond, no NERIS report is submitted.

We add states to this table as we confirm them. If your coordinator gives you an answer for your state, let us know and we will add it.

A call where one of your units went en route and was then cancelled or turned around is a call you responded to. Report it as usual, with the en route time and the canceled-en-route time on that unit.

If Your State Says Not to Report Them

Archive the incident. Open it and choose Archive from its menu. It comes off your incident list and is not sent to NERIS.

Archiving does not delete anything. If you need the call back later, an admin can open the Activity Log, find the incident, and select Unarchive. It comes back exactly as it was.

If the call was already submitted to NERIS, archiving it here does not remove it there. NERIS has no way to withdraw a record, and once you archive the incident you can no longer push corrections to it. Contact your state's NERIS coordinator about the record before you archive it. See Archiving a reported incident.

If Your State Wants Them Reported

Some states want every dispatch on record, including the ones nobody could make. In that case the goal is a record that tells the truth: you were dispatched, and no unit responded.

The Short Version

  1. Keep the incident type CAD dispatched it as. The type describes what the call was, not how it went. A structure fire nobody responded to is still a structure fire.
  2. Say which units did not go. If CAD dispatched specific units, mark each one "Unable to dispatch." That is the flag NERIS provides for a unit that was toned and never rolled. If your department is toned as a whole and no unit ever existed on the call, leave the responding resources empty. NERIS accepts an incident with no unit responses.
  3. Do not add patients, actions, or narrative you cannot vouch for. If nobody from your department made contact, there is nothing to report in those sections.
  4. Check the times on Basic Info, and set a Completed time. A CAD sheet lists every agency on the call, so the en route and on scene times on an imported incident may belong to another agency's unit, not yours. Clear any that are not your department's. Then set the Completed time to when dispatch closed the call, so the incident leaves the Responding board.

Why Not Just Cancel It?

NERIS has a "Cancelled" disposition, and it is tempting to use it for every call that went nowhere. It means something specific: the request for service was withdrawn. Dispatch cancelled you, or the caller cancelled, or another agency arrived and released you before you responded.

A call where you were toned and simply could not muster a crew was not cancelled. Use "Cancelled" when dispatch actually cancelled you, and "Unable to dispatch" on the units when they did not go.

Which Incident Type to Choose

Use whatever the call was dispatched as. If CAD toned it out as a medical call, choose the matching medical type. If it was a fire alarm, choose the alarm type. Do not pick a "no emergency" type just because your department did not respond; those types describe what responders found, and nobody from your department found anything.

Two exceptions:

  • Dispatch cancelled the call before anyone went. Use the "Cancelled" type under No Emergency, and set the no-action reason to Cancelled. That is the true story of the call.
  • You later learn the call was nothing. For example, dispatch tells you it was a false alarm and nobody responded from any agency. Record the false alarm type if you are confident, and still mark your units unable to dispatch.

How to Mark a Unit Unable to Dispatch

On the incident's Resources tab, add the unit that was toned, then check Unable to dispatch. Command Established clears any en route, on scene, and cleared times for that unit, since none of those happened, and asks you to confirm. Leave the crew empty; a unit that never left has no crew to report.

If your department is toned out as a whole rather than by unit, CAD may show no unit at all. Leave the responding resources empty. Do not add an apparatus that was never on the call. Command Established shows an advisory on the Response tab so that an empty list is a deliberate choice rather than an oversight, and the advisory does not stop you from sending the incident for review or submitting it.

If some members went and some did not, only the units that never rolled get the flag.

Medical Calls That EMS Handled

  • Keep the medical incident type. That is what was dispatched.
  • Mark your units unable to dispatch, or leave the resources empty if no unit was ever dispatched, as above.
  • Do not record a patient. NERIS does not require a patient record on a medical incident, and Command Established will not ask for one. Patient evaluation, care, and disposition are statements about what your responders did. If nobody from your department made patient contact, leave the patient section empty.
  • Do not copy details from the CAD sheet into patient fields. The dispatcher's notes about the caller's complaint are not an evaluation. They are also the patient's private information, which is why Command Established does not send the narrative of a medical incident to NERIS at all.
  • Check the incident-level times. On a medical call imported from CAD, the en route and on scene times on Basic Info are usually the ambulance's. Clear them unless they are your own. Leaving an ambulance's arrival on your record makes it your response time in every report.
  • Set the Completed time to when dispatch closed the call. You can set it on Basic Info, or select Close call on the call in Responding.
  • If dispatch or EMS formally cancelled you, set the no-action reason to Cancelled. If you simply did not turn out, leave it unset. The unable-to-dispatch flags carry that meaning on their own.

Frequently Asked Questions

My state hasn't told us either way. What should I do? Ask your state's NERIS coordinator before submitting these calls. A submitted record cannot be withdrawn from NERIS, but an archived incident can always be restored here, so archiving while you wait for an answer is the safer choice.

Do I need to write a narrative? No. A short note such as "No response, EMS handled" is fine for your own records. It is not required, and it does not go to NERIS on a medical incident.

What if CAD shows our unit going en route and then clearing right away? That is a unit that responded and was released, not one that was unable to dispatch. Record the en route time and use the canceled-en-route field, and report the call.

What about calls my department was never part of? For example, an ambulance-only run that your CAD sends you anyway. Archive those in every state. Your department was not dispatched, so there is nothing to report.