What changes on 1 January 2027, and what we are building for it.
Every Ontario department files a Standard Incident Report for every emergency it attends. On 1 January 2027 the form those reports go on changes, for the first time since 2009. The first quarterly filing under it is due 30 April 2027. The Fire Marshal’s own filing route remains available and free, and a department that files that way today can keep doing so.
What changed
Sixty-three new fields →
The first revision since 2009. Most of the new fields sit in one new section.
Section D, for carbon monoxide
Thirty-three fields for CO calls in structures — source, fuel, cause, alarm, and how many people left. Over half the change is here.
Every code renumbered, and dozens deleted
The OFM published a crosswalk for most of it. The gap is what breaks a five-year trend line.
Four files, if you file electronically
Departments that export rather than type send four comma-delimited files. The routing is simple; the formatting is where files get rejected.
An error report, and six months to answer it
A confirmation report in five business days, then an error report for every incident with a problem. The deadline inside it is the one most departments miss.
Look up one of your own codes →
Every response, property and ignition code, with what it became in 2027 and which ones were deleted outright.
Check a file before you file it →
Drop in a .TXT and see what the OFM would bounce. Read in your browser; nothing is uploaded.
We are writing the series up as we go. Everything published on SIR 2027 →
Do you need to buy anything?
No. The obligation is to file, not to own software. The Fire Marshal’s own filing route remains available and free, and a department that files that way today can keep doing so.
A department that already exports incident data from a records system will need that system updated for the new format, and that is a conversation with the vendor it already has. A department that types its reports into the Fire Marshal’s own site has nothing to buy and nothing to migrate.
What you get
Your quarterly filing, done — the four files formatted the way the OFM accepts them, checked before they go, and the error report handled when it comes back.
Your numbers, when council asks: response times, incident types by district, year over year. Out of the system, not out of a spreadsheet.
And if your department already runs its burn permits with us, the two work together from day one.
It will be ready for the 2027 filing year, and nothing about it is a condition of filing.
Not sure where your department stands?
Thirty minutes on the phone. How you file today, what changes for you in January, and whether you need to do anything about it. If the answer is “keep doing what you do,” we will tell you.
The specification
We hold the full 2027 specification in machine-readable form — every field, code and validation rule, from the OFM’s own published pack. The code explorer is the readable half of it. Departments and vendors who want the rest can ask.