The Texas Commission on Fire Protection Now Requires TIM Training to be Renewed Every Five Years

In May 2026, the Texas Commission on Fire Protection revised Texas Administrative Code Chapter 435, Fire Fighter Safety §435.29 that previously required fire protection personnel to complete the Federal Highway Administrations Traffic Incident Management program training or an equivalent course approved by the Commission within one year of appointment to a regulated entity. The revision adopted at the May meeting added a new clause that requires completing the TIM training program at least every five years:

(b) All fire protection personnel will be required to complete the Federal Highway Administration Traffic Incident Management program training or an equivalent course that is approved by the commission every 5 years, at a minimum. Individuals will be credited with four hours of continuing education credit for completing this program. All regulated entities will have three years from adoption of this standard to comply.

By 2029, all fire protection personnel must be compliant with this new every-five-years requirement. The National TIM Training Certificate available online from the Responder Safety Learning Network (RSLN) is accepted by the Texas Commission on Fire Protection as equivalent to the FHWA TIM program. All fire protection personnel can use RSLN’s National TIM Training Certificate to fulfill the Texas Commission’s new refresher TIM training requirement. If you have completed RSLN’s National TIM Training Certificate before, you can complete it again to refresh the date on your certificate. Read our article on how to “refresh” multi-program certificates to learn how to update the date on your National TIM Training Certificate.

“We’ve already seen a significant spike in Responder Safety Learning Network registered users refreshing their National TIM Training Certificate to include a new pass date to meet the Texas Commission’s TIM continuing education requirement,” said Joe Kroboth, III, ResponderSafety.com program manager. “We’re delighted to be able to provide this high quality, vetted training to everyone online and for free, making it as easy as possible to access the training needed to meet this requirement. We applaud the Texas Commission on Fire Protection for adopting this rule change to require refresher TIM training. We all need to keep our safety practices sharp when operating at roadway incident scene responses, whether that’s wearing proper PPE, deploying advance warning, setting up a traffic incident management area, rendering services, or demobilizing that TIMA. We encourage everyone to take advantage of our multi-program refresh capability to update the date on their National TIM Training Certificate or earn it for the first time.”

Departments who are updating their training plans to incorporate this new requirement can use RSLN’s Secondary Reporting program to easily obtain the training results for all their personnel who opt into releasing their results. Secondary Reporting makes it easy for training managers to verify that their personnel have completed the required training so they can report that to the Texas Commission for Fire Protection as mandated by the rule. Go to the Secondary Reporting page to request more information.