Put one page on your site called "Get a copy of a fire report." Say what the person needs to give you, where to send it, what it costs, how long it takes, and what you may hold back. Send medical reports down their own path, because they follow different rules. Make it work for someone who has no computer and no email this week.
Start with the words a resident types
"Incident report" is our word. A homeowner types "fire report" and the name of the town, and the adjuster on the phone probably said the same thing. Use their words for the page title and say "also called an incident report" once in the first line.
If your town clerk handles public records, you still want this page on the fire department side, because that is where people look. Santa Monica does this. Its fire record page sits under the city's how-to pages and tells people to reach the City Clerk's Office by phone or online.
Fire reports and medical reports are two different requests
This is the part most small department pages miss. The report on the fire and the report on the patient are not the same document, and they do not go to the same people.
The Town of Manchester, Connecticut does this well. Its incident and patient care reports page has one heading for a fire or non-medical incident report and a second heading for a patient care report. The fire report is a Freedom of Information request. The patient care report takes a signed medical release, with the patient in person with photo ID or a notarized form by mail or fax.
Santa Monica's page does the same with one line near the top that sends a medical request to its paramedic report page, which says those records are "confidential and protected by Federal and State law." The rules differ by state and by how your department is set up, so ask your town or district attorney what yours are before you write this part. I am not a lawyer. This post is about the page.
The six parts of the page
| Part | What it answers |
|---|---|
| 1. What to give you | The date, the address, the requester's name and how to reach them. The incident number if they have it, and a line saying it is fine if they do not. |
| 2. How to send it | An online form, a records email, or a street address and hours. One clear path first, others after it. |
| 3. What it costs | Your real fee, or the word "Free." How to pay, and when. |
| 4. How long it takes | Your honest usual wait, in days. People plan a claim around this number. |
| 5. What you may hold back | If a report stays closed until an investigation ends, or some details get removed, say so here. |
| 6. Who to ask | One office, one phone number, the hours. Add "If it is an emergency, call 911." |
Three real pages, and what to take from each
Use these for the shape of the page, not for the numbers. Your fee and your rules are yours.
Santa Barbara County Fire keeps the first part short. It asks for one of two things: the requester's name with the date, time, location and type of incident, or the incident number. Then it gives a records email and a phone number. A person can read that on a phone in ten seconds.
Manchester states its price, $0.50 per page on that town's page, and walks through what happens after you press submit: a confirmation email, a review, a second email with the amount due, then the documents. It also has a date on the medical side, a copy within 30 days of a proper request on that town's page. That is the kind of line that stops a follow-up call.
Manchester also thought about the person with no email address. Its form tells them what to enter and warns that they will need to come to Town Hall to pay and pick up. Think about who is reading your page. Their laptop may have been in the house.
Do not make it a scanned PDF
A form that must be printed, filled in by hand and mailed is hard to use from a phone in a hotel room. A screen reader cannot read a scanned page at all. Use a short online form or a plain email address, and label every field with words. If a paper form is required, keep it, but put its questions on the page as typed text too.
Link it with words that say what it is: "Request a fire report," not "click here." Google's own link guidance asks for link text that is descriptive, and a screen reader user hears those same words read out in a list.
Say what the page is not
This page explains how to ask. It should never hold the reports themselves. Do not post incident reports, addresses of fires, or names to your site so people can help themselves. Those requests need a person to look at them first.
Do this this week
- Ask who actually handles these requests now: the chief, the clerk, or a records officer.
- Ask your attorney what you can release, to whom, and how medical reports must be handled.
- Write down your real fee and your real usual wait.
- Make one page with the six parts above, with a separate path for medical reports.
- Add one line for someone who has no email or computer right now.
- Put the page where a resident will look, and tell the crews it exists, so they can point people to it on scene.
Why I am writing this
I build websites for fire departments, so I would like you to have a good one. A fire report page does not need me. Any page you can edit will do. If your site is hard to edit or nobody has the login, that is the gap I fill. For another page that answers a question residents ask, see what a burn permit page should say.