New data released by the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) Fire Analysis and Research Division shows a surprising change in terms of which parts of the country are at increased risk for being impacted by fire events. In “U.S. Fire Experience by Region,” Michael J. Karter shows the following nationwide averages:
- Fires per thousand population: 4.6
- Civilian fire deaths per million population: 9.6
- Civilian fire injuries per million population: 56.2
- Property loss per capita: $34.4
Traditionally, years of data showed that the South was the region showing the most adverse impact from fire. Among fire prevention professionals, the prevailing thought was that this was due to the South being poorer than the rest of the country, more rural and with more substandard housing stock. However, the most recent information reveals that it is now the Midwest that is most adversely affected. Data for the Midwest are:
- Fires per thousand population: 5.4
- Civilian fire deaths per million population: 11.1
- Civilian fire injuries per million population: 64.5
- Property loss per capita: $44
If we, as fire service professionals, maintain that our primary focus is on protecting life and property from the dangers of fire, then this trend in the Midwest becomes particularly troubling—fire deaths and injuries both 15 percent higher than the national average, and property loss a shocking 28 percent higher than national average. Leadership in Midwestern fire departments must question why this is happening. Possible causes include shrinking population, outdated or nonexistent code enforcement, and a lack of quality life safety education. Let’s take a closer look at each of these issues.
Shrinking population
The traditional economic base of the Midwestern states is agriculture and manufacturing, two sectors of the economy not currently experiencing job growth; naturally, this leads residents to seek better opportunities elsewhere. Illinois, for example, is well into its fourth year of leading the nation in population decline, a trend more pronounced in aging and disappearing rural communities.
Fewer people and less economic opportunity leads to an eroding tax base from which to provide government services. NFPA’s “Fourth Needs Assessment of the U.S. Fire Service” alludes to the fact that the smaller the community, the more public service needs are amplified. This conclusion is consistent with data generated by the Department of Justice, which finds that, proportionally, more crime exists in supposedly bucolic rural America.
Fire services in the Midwest are predominantly provided by volunteer organizations serving villages with populations of 3,000 people or less. This creates a “double whammy” for these fire departments in that not only are they competing for a shrinking amount of budget money, but they also have a much smaller pool of citizens from which to draw quality volunteers.
The average length of service for a volunteer firefighter is 3–5 years, and the average person in the U.S. moves every five years. Consider your typical volunteer fire department staffed by 25 volunteers and it’s entirely possible that within those five years, that department could experience a near-total turnover in personnel. The department would be in a constant state of on-boarding any new members, although we should note that the “Needs Assessment” also found that 49 percent of fire departments, most of them rural, do not train all of their members in structural firefighting. This leads to conditions in which it is impossible to create safe, consistent operations, let alone develop and implement a long-term fire risk management policy for the community. The unfortunate fact is that most Midwestern fire departments are staffed by personnel who are either too old or too young, and not looking to stay long in those communities.
Outdated or nonexistent code enforcement
NFPA consistently cites the use of outdated fire codes as a factor in higher fire losses. Again, we’ll use Illinois as an example. Outside of cities adopting their own codes, the state fire code by statute is the 2000 Life Safety Code—a fire code nearly 20 years old! Illinois does slightly better in building safety, as the 2006 International Building Code is used. As is often the case in this state, the given reason is financial: The 2000 Life Safety Code was one of the last codes not to specify sprinklers and other modern fire alarm and suppression systems in occupancies, and the state government cites the onerous cost of retrofitting buildings as reason enough not to update the code.
Compounding the problem is a lack of enforcement in financially stressed fire departments. An assistant chief near me recently touched base regarding some questions he had about life safety code provisions and enforcement. He was surprised when I told him that not only is his organization legally empowered to enforce the code, but that as the authority having jurisdiction, they are expected to! However, this raises a separate but related series of issues such as training and compensation for fire inspectors in small career and rural volunteer fire departments.
Fire inspectors are certified on a three-year cycle and subject to professional development and educational requirements, similar to holding an emergency medical license. Maintaining certification takes time and resources, and in fire departments that are resistant to change and embrace the reactive response model versus adopting a more proactive risk reduction stance, there is reluctance to devote scarce resources to fire code enforcement despite the clear benefits. NFPA finds that only 4 percent of volunteer fire departments provide code enforcement services. Suffice it to say that if these departments are having trouble maintaining a basic level of firefighter training and staffing according to NFPA 1710 or 1720, code enforcement likely isn’t on their radar—even though it should be.
Lack of quality life safety education
If we consider the challenges Midwestern fire departments are facing related to financial resources, staffing, adequate response and training, it becomes starkly clear that the bare minimum—the absolute minimum—these departments can do for the public they serve is to teach them how to be safe in their own homes. The data is well established in this case: 56 percent of structure fires are in one- or two-family homes and impact either the very old or the very young, two of our most vulnerable populations.
Consistent, effective life safety messages tailored to the unique risks of the local community have to become part of the fire department’s service delivery package, whatever the department’s size. Note that I say quality education. Handing out stickers and helmets at the Independence Day parade is an admirable and time-honored public relations activity, but it falls more under the heading of community outreach than true public education. We should also acknowledge that while school fire safety programs are a critical building block of a fire and life safety program, fire departments have to find a way to reach adult learners as well, since the most common causes of fires involve cooking, smoking and misuse of heating and electrical appliances.
Unfortunately, improving public education faces the same obstacles as code enforcement related to resource allocation, time and training. The NFPA “Needs Assessment” found that 54 percent of Americans are living in areas where the fire department has no hazard mitigation (i.e., fire prevention) plans. Few Midwestern fire departments have the vision and will to commit resources to a multi-year program geared toward reducing overall calls for service and instead choose to fall back on the outdated, reactive response service model.
Improve leadership
While the fire risk assessment in the Midwest is troubling, it is not yet dire. Fire chiefs and those officials with legislative oversight for fire protection in the region must recognize the need for change in their organization and operations in order to address life risk and property loss before their communities experience a fire event. Both NFPA and the U.S. Fire Administration have cited poor leadership (operationally, administratively and politically) as reasons why fire departments cannot recruit and retain quality volunteers, which corresponds to issues surrounding safe and effective service delivery. Some simple ways these fire departments can improve their leadership are:
- Education of elected officials: What sort of people make up your board of trustees or your town council? What are their backgrounds, and are they able to ask the right questions about fire risk in your community? Some of these people might be starting at square one, so a fire chief might be handicapping him or herself by assuming that an elected official knows as much about fire safety as a firefighter. The fire department leadership must strike a balance among respectful education of laypeople, team-building with other government agencies, and also “selling” officials on the proactive, comprehensive service delivery mission.
- Improvement of fire officer selection: Quality supervision and management drives effective service delivery. In other words, officers who have received the right training and development and are allowed to fully execute their duties will place the fire department in the best position to succeed. Rural fire departments hamper themselves by hanging on to outdated and frankly, dangerous, methods of selecting officers (e.g., the popular election and annual or biennial appointments). The former assumes no necessary qualifications to lead firefighters while the latter builds a permanent state of uncertainty into fire department administration. A fire chief who would like to make changes to his or her department but is only appointed to a two-year term is not going to be able to implement change in a lasting way; instead that chief will be looking over his or her shoulder all the time hoping not to jeopardize the chances for a reappointment. This is tremendously difficult for rural Midwestern fire departments, but it is critical to improving performance and reducing fire losses. They must have an objective way of measuring officer candidates, and those new officers should be allowed to function in their roles for as long as they are both interested in serving as officers and demonstrate competence in their role. Remember, the best firefighter might not be the best fire chief!
- Know what you’re good at, and cultivate excellence in those areas: In addition to finding ways to improve fire code enforcement and life safety education, fire departments must be honest with themselves (and with the public) about what they’re good at and what they aren’t. Not everyone is able to confront every type of emergency with a high level of skill, whether we’re referring to facilities, equipment or personnel. A small volunteer fire department near me has an active and engaged membership, but they have few members who want to engage in interior structural firefighting. However, they excel in establishing water supply in areas not served by fire hydrants, as well as other exterior support tasks, and by mutual consent with their neighbors they’ve become the “water guys” for their corner of the county while other departments are better able to focus on interior firefighting. This is an excellent example of a fire department confronting its limitations, choosing to emphasize its strengths while partnering with other organizations to better address its weaknesses. Conversely, another volunteer fire department closer to my home insists on attempting to provide high-level firefighting, EMS and rescue services, but due to their organizational limitations they wind up doing none of them very well. In my two decades as a Midwestern firefighter, I can confidently say that a small, rural fire department will enjoy long-term respect and goodwill if they focus their limited time and resources on: 1) effective firefighting in the single-family home, 2) consistent, quality basic life support, 3) single vehicle auto extrication and 4) educating the public about home fire risks. These are achievable goals combatting fire loss that almost everyone can improve on in some way, right away regardless of your staffing or financial circumstances.
Improvements down South
Finally, I would be remiss if I didn’t recognize the Southern states for the excellent work being done in their departments, and by their state fire marshals who coordinate life safety initiatives that are improving regional fire safety. “Get Alarmed Tennessee” is a 5-year-old program with over 500 participating fire departments that have installed over 150,000 smoke alarms. The Tennessee State Fire Marshal’s Office educates local fire departments on fire fatalities in their area and helps tailor the life safety message to local conditions. As part of the “Get Alarmed” program, the fire marshal also offers the “Excellence in Community Risk Reduction Award” to life safety educators and their fire departments who demonstrate commitment and results in reducing fire injury and fatalities.
Alabama’s “Turn Your Attention to Fire Prevention” seeks to modify human behavior in the home in order to reduce the fire threat from cooking, smoking and juvenile fire setting. “Fire Safe South Carolina” sets the ambitious goal of collecting and interpreting data in meaningful ways for firefighters in order to specifically reduce home fires, and also uses updated maps to show where fire deaths are happening.
Across the South, stakeholders have been acting with vision and boldness to acknowledge their fire problem and take definitive steps to reduce it. At the state, county and local levels, Midwestern fire service organizations do not currently possess this powerful mix of motivation, coordination and commitment. If fire safety professionals in this region truly want to reverse the fire risk trend, it will require an ability to perceive the whole of the problem and commitment to long-term solutions—solutions not necessarily involving more firefighters, more trucks, or strategy and tactics. Whether there are departments out there willing to meet the challenge remains to be seen.
