Sixty years ago, as a result of President Truman's directive, the President's Conference on Fire Prevention was convened in Washington D.C. on May 6-8. In his speech, President Truman challenged the conference to take action and outlined his vision that "It is the clear responsibility of every state and local official, and every citizen, to aggressively support this national war against the growing menace of fire." At the 60th anniversary of the 1947 conference, it might be of value to glance back in time and evaluate some of the changes brought upon us by the passage of six decades.
Despite the title, the 1947 conference was not specifically about fire prevention. The focus of the conference was on a comprehensive assessment of the country's fire service, and an in-depth analysis of the fire problem in America; with the intent to develop recommendations to reduce the country's total national fire loss, which at that time was around $560 million and the fire fatalities were more than 10,000 in 1946.
The rate of the total national fire loss back in 1946, was twice as much as the rate of current total national fire cost, which in 2003 was between $226 billion to $272 billion. And the rate of fire fatalities in 1946 was five times higher than our current 2005 fatalities statistics of 3,675. To these facts, add the many large tragic fire losses that the country was experiencing in that era including; the 1942 fire at the Coconut Grove in Boston (492 dead); the 1943 Gulf Motel Fire in Houston (54 dead); the 1946 LaSalle Hotel fire in Chicago (61 dead); the 1944 Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey circus fire in Hartford (167 dead); and the 1946 Winecoff Hotel fire in Atlanta (119 dead). And that explains the reasons for the direct involvement from the highest level of government to address the fire problem in our country.
In his speech, President Truman stated "The serious losses in life and property resulting annually from fires cause me deep concern. I am sure that such unnecessary waste can be reduced. The substantial progress made in the science of fire prevention and fire protection in this country during the past forty years convinces me that the means are available for limiting this unnecessary destruction." The recommendations from all of the various committees, in addition to the minutes from the proceedings of the conference, were clearly indicative of the fact that back in 1947 they recognized that preventing fires in the first place was the best way to reduce the total fire loss in our country.
The importance of being proactive and preventing fires was recognized by the fire service even earlier than 1947. Back in 1928, fire chief D.W. Brosnan of Albany, GA, stated "Any person who is at all conversant with fire safety knows that at least 85% of fires could be prevented. It is the duty of the fire chief to assume leadership and point out the way for the protection of life and the conservation of property of our citizens. The modern fire chief knows that he must be up and doing and prevent fires from starting, if he is to be successful in reducing the loss." No, Chief Brosnan wasn't just a small town fire chief in Georgia. Chief Brosnan was also the President of the International Association of Fire Chiefs (IAFC) back in 1931 and 1932.
All be it not that many in comparison, but still "modern fire chiefs" all the way back from Chief Brosnan's era up to now, have all been cognizant of the importance of fire prevention as an essential responsibility of the fire service, and as an integral part of the overall strategy to address the fire problem in our country. This fact was evident in the fire service representation back in the 1947 Conference. And that same in-depth awareness and acknowledgement was also manifested in the 1973 America Burning report, the 1987 America Burning Revisited report, and finally the 2000 America Burning Recommissioned (America at Risk) report. Review of brief excerpts from these reports attests to this fact:
In the 1973 America Burning report it is stated "There needs to be more emphasis on fire prevention. Fire departments, many of which confine their roles to putting out fires and rescuing its victims, need to expend more efforts to educate children on fire safety, to educate adults through residential inspections, to enforce fire prevention codes, and to see that fire safety is designed into buildings." Also stated in the 1973 report was "The commission recommends that local governments make fire prevention at least equal to suppression in the planning of fire department priorities."
The 1987, America Burning Revisited report stated "The National Commission on Fire Prevention and Control noted that fire prevention was the key to effective and efficient fire protection services." And the 2000, America Burning Recommissioned stated "Ways to reduce fire losses and deaths are neither unknown nor arcane. The primary way and the goal of any effort in this area must be to prevent fires in the first place."
Reflections of the recommendations contained in those comprehensive federal reports, could easily be traced in the numerous USFA literatures, where they have also emphasized the importance of the fire prevention in addressing the fire problem. In FEMA's report titled "Fire Death Rate Trends", it is stated "The United States has one of the premier firefighting forces in the world, but we need to focus more on prevention and less on putting out fires once they have started...Other countries have demonstrated that it is possible to save lives by expending more energy and funding on fire prevention and fire education."
It is quite evident that lack of available resources and the low priority for fire prevention is the common thread between the 1947, 1973, and even today's America in 2007. Back in the 1947 Conference, George W. Welsh, Mayor of Grand Rapids, Michigan, and the president of the United States Conference of Mayors stated "Give us the tools and we will do the job...Give us money to engage the men so that inspections at not too long an interval can be made of every home and every building, where the trained eye of a firefighter will go in and point out what is wrong. Give us the finances to equip these men with the kind of equipment that they ought to have, and the job will be done." Sixty years ago, Mayor Welsh was concerned about lack of funding, and today, all fire prevention officers would tell you the very exact thing.
In the book Public Budgeting: Politics, Institutions, and Processes definition of budget is "budgets are about values...budgeting is concerned with the translation of financial resources into human purposes. A budget then is a concrete expression of the values of society." And in the book "Public Administration in America" the definition of budget is explained as "budgets also should reflect the mission or purpose for a bureaucratic agency's existence. This suggests still another function of budgets, intentional or not: they represent the priorities of those who formulated them." Then it is only fair to say that "intentional or not" based on the available statistics, fire prevention is still not a high priority for our country's fire service.
Lack of funding has always been a problem for fire prevention, back in the times of Mayor Welsh in 1947, all the way to now, where as an average, around the country, fire prevention consumes less than 5% of the total fire departments' budgets. Never mind the 1973 recommendation about fire prevention being of the same level of priority and funding as suppression; even doubling the current rate to a mere 10% of the total, would have a significant impact in reducing our fire losses in America.
Aside from the money though, I believe that the more significant problem is the fire service's philosophical perspectives and priorities. Indeed budgets "represent the priorities of those who formulated them", but I believe that even more disturbing than the lack of money, is the fire service's lack of acknowledgement and priority for the role that fire prevention plays in reducing our country's fire fatalities and property loss. Chief Brosnan would have been disappointed to know that even after 80 years, the "modern fire chiefs" of today are still focused primarily on fire suppression, and fire prevention is still a low priority for the American fire service in 2007.
Why? Simply because, even without the need for the "modern fire chief" to cut fire suppression's budget by a single dime to provide more for prevention, if we all make it a top priority for the fire service to promote and utilize all available technologies, such as the smoke alarms and the residential fire sprinkler systems, we could significantly reduce the fire fatalities and property losses in our country.
In the September 2006 NFPA Journal article, titled "Fire Loss in the United States During 2005" it is stated that "with home fire deaths still accounting for 3,030 fire deaths or 82% of all civilian deaths, fire safety initiatives targeted at the home remain the key to any reductions in the overall fire death toll". Focused on reducing the fire fatalities in residential occupancies, on their website, Home Fire Sprinkler Coalition (HFSC) claims that "installing both smoke alarms and a fire sprinkler system reduces the risk of death in a fire home by 82% relative to having neither".
We do indeed know what and where we should be focusing on, and how to reduce 80% of our fire fatalities, yet we fail to adequately promote them. Simple, affordable life-saving technologies, such as the smoke alarms and the residential fire sprinkler systems have been available for decades. But, while smoke alarms are now quite common and have been installed in 96% of our homes; residential fire sprinkler systems have not been installed in all homes, but only in about 2% of homes in our country.
Throughout the history of man kind, money has always been blamed as the obvious culprit for all kinds of problems. But at least in this case here, I think that lack of money, major as it may be, is only a symptom; and the roots of the problem is still the lack of priority for fire prevention on our part. Obviously, with higher priority comes more money. So to address the problem we should focus on the cause rather than on the effect.
Back in 1947, Clarence W. Meadows, Governor of West Virginia representing the Council of State Governments stated "Too many people, too many public officials, too many cities place their trust in a fire engine, in a good fire department, and these they should have - but no horse was ever saved by locking the barn door after he was gone, and a fire that has started is definitely much harder to put out than one which never gets started. The real basic answer to this whole problem, as you must undoubtedly realize by now, if never before, is prevention - again let me say it - prevention!"
It is evident that we are facing the same persistent problem, as we did even before the 1947 President's Conference on Fire Prevention. President Truman believed that we had the technology to address the fire problem. And 60 years later, the fact that we have the technology and yet fail to use it to address the fire problem, has remained the same.
Unfortunately at the 60th anniversary of the 1947 President's Conference on Fire Prevention, the "barn door" is still wide open. Chief Brosnan was indeed correct in stating "it is the duty of the fire chief to assume leadership and point out the way for the protection of life and the conservation of property of our citizens." It is up to us "modern fire chiefs" to lock the barn door.
As proud members of the fire service, I believe that it is our professional obligation to acknowledge the importance of our fire prevention responsibilities and promote utilizing all available life-saving technologies, such as the smoke alarm and the residential fire sprinkler systems, in reducing the fire fatalities and the life-scarring fire injuries in our communities.
Azarang (Ozzie) Mirkhah, Firehouse.com Contributing Editor, is the Fire Protection Engineer (FPE) for the City of Las Vegas Department of Fire & Rescue. His responsibilities include reviewing all building fire and life safety system designs and submittals to insure compliance with the federal, state and local fire and life safety codes and standards. Mr. Mirkhah is also involved in the development of fire & life safety codes and standards for the city.
Mr. Mirkhah is a registered professional engineer with more than 25 years of work experience in the field of fire protection engineering. Mr. Mirkhah joined the Las Vegas Fire & Rescue (LVF&R) more than 12 years ago. Prior to that Mr. Mirkhah worked as a consultant designing fire protection systems for some of the most internationally recognized fire protection consulting firms.
Mr. Mirkhah holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering (BSME), and a Masters degree in Public Administration (MPA). Mr. Mirkhah is a 1999 graduate of the National Fire Academy's Executive Fire Officer Program. Mr. Mirkhah is a Certified Building Official, Certified Fire Inspector, Certified Mechanical Inspector, and Certified Plans Examiner through the International Code Council (ICC).
Mr. Mirkhah is a member of the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) and serves on the national NFPA 13 Technical Committee for Sprinkler System Discharge Design Criteria. Mr. Mirkhah is a member of the Society of Fire Protection Engineers (SFPE) a member of the Institution of Fire Engineers (IFE) - USA Branch. Mr. Mirkhah is also a member of the International Association of Fire Chiefs (IAFC). You can contact Mr. Mirkhah at: [email protected]. To view all of Ozzie's articles on Firehouse.com, please click here.
