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U.S. FIRE ADMINISTRATION AND 

FIRE GRANT PROGRAMS REAUTHORIZATION: 

EXAMINING EFFECTIVENESS AND PRIORITIES 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON RESEARCH AND TECHNOLOGY 

COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND 

TECHNOLOGY 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED FIFTEENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

JULY 12, 2017 

Serial No. 115–21 

Printed for the use of the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology 

( 

Available via the World Wide Web: http://science.house.gov 
(II) 

COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND TECHNOLOGY 

HON. LAMAR S. SMITH, Texas, Chair 

FRANK D. LUCAS, Oklahoma 

DANA ROHRABACHER, California 

MO BROOKS, Alabama 

RANDY HULTGREN, Illinois 

BILL POSEY, Florida 

THOMAS MASSIE, Kentucky 

JIM BRIDENSTINE, Oklahoma 

RANDY K. WEBER, Texas 

STEPHEN KNIGHT, California 

BRIAN BABIN, Texas 

BARBARA COMSTOCK, Virginia 

BARRY LOUDERMILK, Georgia 

RALPH LEE ABRAHAM, Louisiana 

DRAIN LAHOOD, Illinois 

DANIEL WEBSTER, Florida 

JIM BANKS, Indiana 

ANDY BIGGS, Arizona 

ROGER W. MARSHALL, Kansas 

NEAL P. DUNN, Florida 

CLAY HIGGINS, Louisiana 

RALPH NORMAN, South Carolina 

EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas 

ZOE LOFGREN, California 

DANIEL LIPINSKI, Illinois 

SUZANNE BONAMICI, Oregon 

AMI BERA, California 

ELIZABETH H. ESTY, Connecticut 

MARC A. VEASEY, Texas 

DONALD S. BEYER, JR., Virginia 

JACKY ROSEN, Nevada 

JERRY MCNERNEY, California 

ED PERLMUTTER, Colorado 

PAUL TONKO, New York 

BILL FOSTER, Illinois 

MARK TAKANO, California 

COLLEEN HANABUSA, Hawaii 

CHARLIE CRIST, Florida 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON RESEARCH AND TECHNOLOGY

HON. BARBARA COMSTOCK, Virginia, Chair 

FRANK D. LUCAS, Oklahoma 

RANDY HULTGREN, Illinois 

STEPHEN KNIGHT, California 

DARIN LAHOOD, Illinois 

RALPH LEE ABRAHAM, Louisiana 

DANIEL WEBSTER, Florida 

JIM BANKS, Indiana 

ROGER W. MARSHALL, Kansas 

LAMAR S. SMITH, Texas 

DANIEL LIPINSKI, Illinois 

ELIZABETH H. ESTY, Connecticut 

JACKY ROSEN, Nevada 

SUZANNE BONAMICI, Oregon 

AMI BERA, California 

DONALD S. BEYER, JR., Virginia 

EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas 
(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

July 12, 2017 

Page 

Witness List ............................................................................................................. 2 

Hearing Charter ...................................................................................................... 3 

Opening Statements 

Statement by Representative Barbara Comstock, Chairwoman, Subcommittee 

on Research and Technology, Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, 

U.S. House of Representatives ............................................................................ 4 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 6 

Statement by Representative Daniel Lipinski, Ranking Member, Subcommittee on Research and Technology, Committee on Science, Space, and 

Technology, U.S. House of Representatives ....................................................... 8 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 10 

Statement by Representative Eddie Bernice Johnson, Ranking Member, Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives .... 12 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 14 

Witnesses 

Dr. Denis Onieal, Acting Administrator, United States Fire Administration 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 17 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 20 

Chief John Sinclair, President and Chair of the Board, International Association of Fire Chiefs; Fire Chief, Kittitas Valley Fire and Rescue (WA) 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 30 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 32 

Captain John Niemiec, President, Fairfax County (VA) Professional Fire 

Fighters and Paramedics–International Association of Fire Fighters Local 

2068 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 40 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 42 

Mr. Steve Hirsch, First Vice Chair, National Volunteer Fire Council; Training 

Officer, Sheridan County Fire District #1, Thomas County Fire District 

#4, and Grinnell Fire Department (KS) 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 51 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 53 

Dr. Gavin Horn, Research Program Director, Illinois Fire Service Institute 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 66 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 69 

Chief H. ‘‘Butch’’ Browning, Jr., President, National Association of State 

Fire Marshals, Louisiana State Fire Marshal 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 84 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 86 

Discussion ................................................................................................................. 95 

Appendix I: Answers to Post-Hearing Questions 

Dr. Denis Onieal, Acting Administrator, United States Fire Administration .... 110 
Page

IV 

Appendix II: Additional Material for the Record 

Letters submitted by Representative Barbara Comstock, Chairwoman, Subcommittee on Research and Technology, Committee on Science, Space, and 

Technology, U.S. House of Representatives ....................................................... 114 

Letter submitted by Representative Daniel Lipinski, Ranking Member, Subcommittee on Research and Technology, Committee on Science, Space, and 

Technology, U.S. House of Representatives ....................................................... 124 
(1) 

U.S. FIRE ADMINISTRATION 

AND FIRE GRANT PROGRAMS 

REAUTHORIZATION: 

EXAMINING EFFECTIVENESS AND PRIORITIES 

WEDNESDAY, JULY 12, 2017 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON RESEARCH AND TECHNOLOGY, 

COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND TECHNOLOGY, 

Washington, D.C. 

The Subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10:07 a.m., in Room 

2318 of the Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Barbara Comstock [Chairwoman of the Subcommittee] presiding. 
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Chairwoman COMSTOCK. The Committee on Science, Space, and 

Technology will come to order. 

Without objection, the Chair is authorized to declare recesses of 

the Committee at any time. 

Good morning, and welcome to today’s hearing titled ’’U.S. Fire 

Administration and Fire Grant Programs Reauthorization: Examining Effectiveness and Priorities.’’ I now recognize myself for five 

minutes for an opening statement. 

The purpose of today’s hearing is to review the United States 

Fire Administration and the Assistance to Firefighters (FIRE) and 

Staffing for Adequate Fire and Emergency Response (SAFER) 

grant programs. The hearing will help inform legislation to address 

current program authorizations that expire on September 30, 2017. 

Fire prevention and safety is literally a matter of life and death. 

In 2015 there were 1.34 million fires reported in the United States, 

causing over 3,000 civilian deaths and over 15,000 injuries. In addition to this devastating human loss, fires caused $14.3 billion in 

property damage. 

As I travel throughout my district and visit with my firefighters 

and paramedics and first responders, I am constantly reminded of 

the sacrifices that these brave men and women make on a daily 

basis to protect their fellow citizens in our community. Last year, 

sadly, 69 of those brave men and women across the country lost 

their lives in the line of duty. 

Fire prevention has improved dramatically in the last 40 years 

since Congress passed the Federal Fire Prevention and Control Act 

in 1974, which created the U.S. Fire Administration and the National Fire Academy, but these numbers are still too high. 

USFA and NFA are tasked with data collection, public education, 

as well as research and training efforts, to help to reduce fire 

deaths and make our communities and residents safer. 

We will hear from the Acting Administrator of the U.S. Fire Administration today about how the agency works to fulfill its mission 

and learn how we can enhance its efforts to improve fire safety in 

the United States. 

Firefighting activities and funding are primarily the responsibility of states and local communities. However, for the last 15 

years the Federal Government has awarded competitive federal 

grants directly to local fire departments and unaffiliated emergency 

medical services organizations to help address a variety of equipment, training, and other firefighter-related and EMS needs, and 

oftentimes those are dealing with new technologies too that we 

want to make sure you have the best and the latest. 

FIRE Act awards provide funding for equipment and training to 

ensure the safety of our nation’s first responders. SAFER Act 

awards help departments address hiring, recruiting and retaining 

firefighters to help maintain and increase the number of trained 

firefighters in local communities. 

I know that many professional and volunteer departments in my 

district rely on these grants so they can continue to provide highquality fire and emergency services both to their communities, and 

I know in the instance of my community, they often are helping 

people throughout the country as well as internationally acclaimed. 
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So a fine member of one of those departments is here today with 

us, Captain John Niemiec, from the Fairfax County Fire and Rescue Department. I look forward to hearing his testimony on the 

needs of the firefighters in his department and around the country. 

We have a panel representing state and local fire departments 

and organizations from around the country: Washington State, 

Kansas, Louisiana and Illinois. All have different needs, and I look 

forward to their input on how we can improve the fire safety in all 

communities and support our nation’s first responders. 

Last month the horrific Grenfell Tower fire in London that killed 

over 80 people reminded us we cannot take fire safety for granted. 

Closer to home, it was just two years ago that a Metro fire injured 

70 and killed a Virginia resident who was a grandmother of three. 

In each case, first responders ran towards the flames and prevented additional lives from being lost. 

I look forward to working with my colleagues on both sides of the 

aisle to move this timely legislation to ensure our nation’s firefighters and paramedics have the tools they need to fight and prevent fire. 

And with that, I look forward to hearing the testimonies of our 

witnesses. 

[The prepared statement of Chairwoman Comstock follows:] 
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Chairwoman COMSTOCK. And I now recognize the Ranking Member, the gentleman from Illinois, Mr. Lipinski, for his opening 

statement. 

Mr. LIPINSKI. I thank you, Chairwoman Comstock. 

The authorizations of the U.S. Fire Administration Assistance to 

Firefighters Grant, or AFG, program as well as the Staffing for 

Adequate Fire and Emergency Response, or SAFER grant program, 

expire in just 2 months. Without Congressional action, both programs will terminate on January 2, 2018, under sunset provisions 

included in the last reauthorization. I hope this Committee will 

work to get a bill to the President’s desk before that time to reauthorize these programs. 

I thank our distinguished panelists for being here today and for 

their service in keeping the American public safe from fire and 

from other hazardous threats. 

In the early 1990s, fires claimed 12,000 Americans lives per year and caused $11 billion in damage, making the U.S. the leader of 

all major industrialized countries in per capita deaths and property 

loss from fire. A 1973 report by the National Commission on Fire 

Prevention and Control, titled America Burning, recommended the 

establishment of the U.S. Fire Administration and the National 

Fire Academy. 

Thanks in large part to the efforts of those institutions and all 

of our first responders, the Nation is making progress in lowering 

fire fatalities. Today’s rate of just over 3,000 civilian fire deaths per 

year is significantly lower than in the 1970s, but it is still one of 

the highest in the industrialized world. Unfortunately, it will be 

difficult to reduce fire fatalities and property loss without adequate 

funding of the Fire Administration and fire grant programs. While 

appropriated funding levels have remained somewhat flat for the 

last few years, these levels are well below program authorizations. 

Critical areas such as firefighter safety, fire protection, and fire 

data collection and analysis, all of which assist fire service professionals in the field and help keep communities safe, are underfunded. 

Career, volunteer, and combination fire departments all face 

challenges in meeting their day-today needs. Local fire departments are the boots on the ground for fire prevention and protection, but when state budgets do not allow for adequate funding to 

hire firefighters and ensure proper training and access to life-saving protective gear and equipment, there is a federal role in providing funding and technical assistance. The Fire Grants Reauthorization Act of 2012 made significant changes to the fire grant programs to address some of these funding and technical obstacles. 

Changes included the distribution of AFG fire funding among the 

various types of fire departments, reducing the cost share requirement for smaller departments, and waiving the matching requirements for less affluent communities. 

Whether in a booming local economy or a struggling one, many 

of today’s fire departments do more than fight fire. They respond 

to medical calls, hazardous materials calls, and calls about other 

hazardous situations, such as an active shooter. It is critical that 

the more than one million firefighters across the Nation have access to proper training to protect the public and themselves while 
9 

doing a very tough job. The National Fire Academy curriculum reflects current firefighter duties to help fire and emergency professionals prepare for all-hazards responses. Achieving successful outcomes in all-hazards responses often requires the use of advanced 

firefighting technologies. Federal agencies including the Department of Homeland Security, the National Institute of Standards 

and Technology, and the National Science Foundation along with 

the university research community, are investing in fire-related research, including first responder protective equipment, health and 

safety monitoring of emergency responders, and smart information 

and communications technologies for real-time situational awareness. I look forward to Dr. Horn’s testimony on how these technologies help firefighters and what research needs and capability 

gaps require further investment. 

I look forward to hearing from our panel—I look forward to hearing our panel discuss the effects of these changes and others to the 

fire service community, and what the Committee should consider 

as we look at reauthorizing these programs. Thank you for taking 

the time to appear before us today. 

Chairwoman Comstock, before I yield back, I ask—I want to ask 

unanimous consent to introduce into the record a letter from the 

Property Casualty Insurance Association of America in support of 

the SAFER grants program. 

Chairwoman COMSTOCK. Without objection. 

[The information appears in Appendix II] 

Mr. LIPINSKI. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman, and in the last 

few seconds, I just want to say I was just in my district on Monday 

at the Lagrange Fire Department, and they just have been awarded a grant and they’re telling me about how important that these 

grants are for assuring community safety, and again, I want to 

thank everyone who is here today, and thank you for your service 

to our country and all of our communities. 

I yield back. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Lipinski follows:] 
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Chairwoman COMSTOCK. Thank you, and I now recognize the 

Ranking Member of the full Committee for a statement, Ms. Johnson. 

Ms. JOHNSON. Thank you very much, Chairwoman Comstock. 

Thank you for holding this hearing today. 

As the Committee considers reauthorization, it is helpful to exam 

the effectiveness and priorities of the U.S. Fire Administration, the 

Assistance to Firefighters Grant Program, and the Staffing for Adequate Fire and Emergency Response Grant program. I want to welcome all of our witnesses, and I appreciate them being here to 

share insights today. 

I’m pleased to announce earlier this year that the City of 

Duncanville, in my district, received a grant. As with other grant 

recipients, the award will help the Duncanville Fire Department in 

its efforts to protect the health and safety of the public and emergency response personnel. 

The availability of these funds is critical to many communities. 

Local fire departments respond to a myriad of hazards, from structural fires and automobile accidents, to wildfires, other natural disasters, and even terrorist attacks. 

Faring better than many other programs, the U.S. Fire Administration and the fire grants programs would remain flat funded 

under this Administration’s fiscal year 2018 budget proposal. However, that budget request and the recent appropriations for these 

programs have fallen well below the authorized levels. In addition 

to providing fewer resources for training, purchasing life-saving 

equipment, and hiring enough firefighters to respond safely to 

emergencies, under-funding also affects Congress’s ability to conduct oversight of these programs. When the agencies do not have 

proper funding to carry out the required studies and reports, we 

lack the data and feedback on the effectiveness of the programs. So 

I urge this Committee to continue to support authorization levels 

that acknowledge the significant demand for these important programs. 

This hearing is also an opportunity for us to review changes 

made to the programs since the last authorization. In 2016, GAO 

reported that FEMA has incorporated a majority of the changes 

Congress required in 2012. However, GAO also recommended 

greater coordination between the Fire Administration and FEMA, 

as well as the establishment of clearer performance metrics for the 

grant programs. 

The agencies still have work to do to meet those recommendations. Coordination and collaboration among relevant agencies is 

key. For example, while wildfires are handled by the U.S. Forest 

Service, wildfires often approach and even hit populated areas. I 

am interested in hearing more about collaboration between federal 

agencies, state, tribal, and local jurisdictions in addressing 

wildland-urban interface fires. 

Finally, the fire service community relies on advances in fire-related scientific research and technological innovation, including 

communications technologies, protective gear and equipment, and 

firefighting tactics. I hope that Dr. Onieal and Dr. Horn, you will 

provide us with an update on fire-related research needs and any 

technology gaps that need addressing, as well as federal agency col-
13 

laborations and university partnerships. The U.S. Fire Administration and the fire grants program provide critical resources to address the nation’s emergency response challenges, and I look forward to hearing from the witnesses how Congress can ensure they 

have the support they need to assist the departments effectively 

across the nation. It is an important role that you play, and I hope 

to hear from you today. 

Thank you, and I yield back. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Johnson follows:] 
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Chairwoman COMSTOCK. We will introduce our witnesses. Our 

first today is Dr. Denis Onieal, Acting Administrator of the U.S. 

Fire Administration. He joined the Jersey City Fire Department in 

1971 and rose through the ranks from firefighter to deputy chief, 

then acting chief in 1995, leading a uniformed force of 625 firefighter and officers. He was appointed Superintendent of the National Fire Academy in 1995. He holds a bachelor of science degree 

from New Jersey University, a master’s degree in public administration from Fairleigh Dickinson University, and a doctor of education degree from NYU. He taught in the master and doctorate 

programs in education at NYU for five years, and has written numerous articles in the fire field. 

Our second witness today is Chief John Sinclair, President and 

Chair of the Board for the International Association of Fire Chiefs. 

He also serves as Fire Chief of the Kittitas Valley Fire and Rescue 

in Washington State. Prior to this position, Chief Sinclair served on 

the emergency medical services section where he was involved with 

major issues facing fire-based EMS. He currently represents the 

fire service on the National EMS Advisory Council. He has also 

worked with the American College of Surgeons Hartford Consensus 

I and II, as well as assisted with the Department of Homeland Security and Centers for Disease Control with their Bystander Response Project. 

Our third witness today is Captain John Niemiec, President of 

the Fairfax County, Virginia, Professional Fire Fighters and Paramedics, International Association of Fire Fighters. He is a 22-year 

veteran of the Fairfax County Fire and Rescue Department. He 

also serves as an Executive Board Member of the National Conference on Public Employee Retirement Systems, the largest trade 

association dedicated to nonprofit public pension advocating. He 

earned his bachelor’s degree in occupational safety and health from 

the National Labor College as well as a certificate of completion 

from the George Washington University’s EMT/paramedic program. 

I now recognize Dr. Marshall to introduce our next witness. 

Mr. MARSHALL. Thank you, Chairwoman Comstock. I’m very honored to introduce our fourth witness today, Mr. Steve Hirsch. Steve 

is the first Chair of the National Volunteer Fire Council and a resident of the largest agriculture producing district in the country, the 

1st District of Kansas. Steve served as the Training Officer for 

Sheridan County, Thomas County, and the Grinnell Fire Department of Kansas, and that’s about 2,000 square miles as I remember 

having just been out there this past week doing some town halls. 

These are all 100 percent volunteer fire departments. Mr. Hirsch 

served as the Secretary of the Kansas State Firefighters Association since 2000 and also serves as the Country Attorney for Decatur County. He’s a graduate of the one of the finest institutions in 

the land, Kansas State University, as well as Washburn Law 

School. I want to recognize his wife Anita, who’s in the audience 

as well, and I’m very proud that I’ve delivered a couple of Anita’s— 

I think they were both boys, weren’t they nephews, or is it one of 

each? One of each. Okay. So it’s been 20 years ago, but there was 

one of each, so very proud that she’s here and certainly understand 

what a sacrifice it is to let your husband go play these games. He’s 

got to do all these weekend chores. My dad was in charge of the 
17 

fire department in my hometown, and I trained many weekends 

with him training volunteers as well, and I hate to admit this, 

Steve, but I had to call on some of your friends’ help one hot summer afternoon when I had a little prairie fire get out of control, and 

they sure saved my bacon, so I appreciate what you do, and of 

course, we just had 650,000 acres of wildfire in Kansas that destroyed over 5,000 head of cattle. So certainly saved hundreds from 

that fire and appreciate all that you guys do for us. Thanks. 

Chairwoman COMSTOCK. Great. Now, our fifth witness today is 

Dr. Gavin Horn, Research Program Director for the Illinois Fire 

Service Institute. His research interests lie in the areas of firefighter health and safety research, first responder technology development, material testing and design, and non-destructive evaluation. He is a member of the Board of Trustees for the Fire Protection Research Foundation and currently serves as a Firefighter and 

Engineer with the Savoy Fire Department in Illinois. He received 

his Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from the University of Illinois 

at Urbana-Champaign. 

Our sixth witness today is Chief Butch Browning, President of 

the National Association of State Fire Marshals as well as the Louisiana State Fire Marshal. Over the past seven years, he has led 

the reorganization of the State Fire Marshal’s Office to include 

cross training of personnel and the development of a modern data 

management system. Over the past 29 years, he has served at all 

levels of the fire service. He entered public service as a Sheriff’s 

Deputy for East Baton Rouge Parish and later served as Fire Chief 

for the District 6 Fire Department in Baton Rouge and for the City 

of Gonzalez. He is a graduate of the National Fire Academy’s Executive Fire Office program and is a nationally registered emergency 

medical technician. 

I now recognize Dr. Onieal for five minutes to present his testimony. 

TESTIMONY OF DR. DENIS ONIEAL, 

ACTING ADMINISTRATOR, 

UNITED STATES FIRE ADMINISTRATION 

Dr. ONIEAL. Good morning, Madam Chair and Members of the 

Committee. My name is Dennis Onieal. I serve as the Acting 

United States Fire Administrator, responsible for managing the 

USFA, our programs, training and facilities at the National Emergency Training Center, and I’m pleased to talk to you this morning 

about the USFA. 

In a sentence, the USFA works to prevent local emergencies from 

becoming natural disasters, and to the extent that a community 

has a well-trained, well-led cadre of responders, that emergency 

stays local. Poorly handled or so large the local forces are overwhelmed, local emergencies become disasters, triggering state and 

federal response, assets and costs. 

Sometimes the emergency is of such initial magnitude that the 

local responders are overwhelmed, and when that happens, it’s important that the local forces integrate with state and local agencies 

under the National Incident Management System. Poorly prepared 

local forces won’t integrate well, resulting in increased loss of life 
18 

and property, increased costs, and often criticism of federal response. 

The USFA supports the DHS and FEMA missions in four ways. 

We train mid- to senior-level fire officers and specialists; we collect 

and analyze incident data and provide information about the 25 

million fire department responses a year; we develop and distribute 

fire prevention and public education programs; and we assist in research. 

There are several disturbing factors that I see affecting our nation and citizens over the next few decades. First, as you all pointed out, Americans are dying in fires, a little over 3,000 a year, and 

we work closely with all affected governments and groups to encourage the installation of sprinklers and smoke alarms, conduct 

inspections, and practice drills. But the methods and materials of 

construction are changing rapidly. Today’s modern fire home is a 

perfect storm of conditions and outcomes—larger floor areas, increased fuel loads, and new construction materials. These result in 

faster spreads, shorter time to flashover, less time to escape, and 

more rapid collapse. 

Secondly, the Baby Boomers are hitting the local fire and emergency services response system. We have more than 30 years of 

data to show that senior citizens are the high-risk group for fires, 

the high-risk group for accidents, and the high-demand group for 

emergency medical services. The beginning of the Boomers are 

turning 71 this past January, and the trailing end turning 53, and 

their life expectancy is 85 years. We anticipate 32 more years of 

high demand for emergency services by our most vulnerable population. 

Thirdly, the wildland fire issue including the wildland-urban 

interface where civilization meets the forest is a growing problem. 

What once was seasonal is now perennial, beginning earlier and 

ending later each year. People are living in the WUI, and once a 

wildland fire starts within miles of their home, they’re vulnerable. 

This is a nationwide issue from the East in Florida and Tennessee 

to the West in Utah, Arizona and California. 

Fourthly, fire departments are now an essential element in the 

response to active shooters. As a recent example, Chief Tammy 

Kaya was the first arriving fire chief officer at the Dallas police 

shooting. She continues to publicly state that her success in managing the medical response was the training that she received at 

the National Fire Academy. 

To address these four concerns, the NFA provides cutting-edge 

education and training to America’s estimated 1.3 million firefighters. Courses are delivered in classrooms at the National Emergency Training Center in classrooms throughout the United States 

in cooperation with accredited state and local fire training agencies 

and colleges and universities. The NFA also has a robust system 

of online instructor-mediated and self-study courses. 

Our National Fire Data Center continues to modernize the National Fire Incident Reporting System browsing tool along with 

other web tool applications to improve the overall reliability, performance, ease of data entry, and administration by fire departments and state users. This modernization will allow users to access the NFIRS data warehouse to access, share and compare data. 
19 

Finally, Madam Chair, I want to thank you and the Committee’s 

generous gifts of time and interest, and I appreciate the opportunity to highlight the accomplishments of the Fire Administration 

and the hard work of our staff. Your continued support is instrumental as we work to make America fire safe. I’ll be happy to answer any questions. 

[The prepared statement of Dr. Onieal follows:] 
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Chairwoman COMSTOCK. Thank you. 

And I now recognize Chief Sinclair for five minutes to present his 

testimony. 

TESTIMONY OF CHIEF JOHN SINCLAIR, 

PRESIDENT AND CHAIR OF THE BOARD, 

INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF FIRE CHIEFS; 

FIRE CHIEF, KITTITAS VALLEY FIRE AND RESCUE (WA) 

Chief SINCLAIR. Good morning, Chairman Comstock, Ranking 

Member Lipinski, and Members of the Subcommittee. I am Chief 

John Sinclair, Fire Chief of the Kittitas Valley Fire and Rescue Department in Ellensburg, Washington. Today I testify as the President and Chairman of the Board of the International Association 

of Fire Chiefs. On behalf of the 12,000 members of the IAFC, I 

thank you for the opportunity to discuss the effectiveness of the Assistance to Firefighters Grant program including the SAFER grant 

program along with the U.S. Fire Administration. 

The role of America’s fire and emergency service continues to 

evolve to cover new missions such as EMS, hazmat and terrorism 

response. The USFA and the AFG and SAFER grant programs are 

important partners in helping the nation’s fire and emergency service meet this challenge. The AFG program was created by Congress 

in 2000 to help fire departments provide baseline emergency response for their communities. This FEMA program uses a highly 

respected merit-based peer-review process to evaluate grant applications and provide matching grants to local fire departments. The 

AFG program helps fire departments with equipment and training. 

The SAFER program helps fire departments meet staffing needs, 

and the Fire Prevention and Safety program supports fire prevention programs and research to promote firefighter and civilian fire 

safety. 

The AFG program has helped my department. Using AFG 

grants, KVFR purchased personal protective equipment and selfcontained breathing apparatus for our firefighters. These purchases 

improved their safety and helped improve regional interoperability 

between local fire departments that eventually led to a merger, 

making a more effective and efficient response force. 

The SAFER grant program plays a vital role in helping local fire 

departments meet staffing needs. Besides providing matching 

grants for career firefighters, the SAFER grant program also provides grants for volunteer recruitment and retention. Approximately 70 percent of the nation’s firefighters are volunteers. Nevertheless, fire departments face trouble recruiting and retaining volunteers who must balance firefighting and training requirements 

with job and family commitments. By partnering with state chiefs 

organizations in Virginia, Connecticut and Tennessee, the IAFC is 

working on SAFER-funded initiatives to help local fire departments 

recruit and retain volunteers. These programs include marketing 

campaigns and leadership training to help volunteer fire chiefs. 

I want to recognize Representative Esty for her assistance in a 

PSA helping with the Connecticut program. The Connecticut campaign led to 900 events, distributed 68,000 marketing materials, 

and resulted in 400 new volunteer firefighters. The Virginia cam-
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paign resulted in more than 1,100 applications in 15 participating 

departments with 656 new members that came in. 

I would also like to highlight the life-saving research funded by 

the Fire Prevention and Safety Grant program. The IAFC’s FSTAR 

program translates the research funded by these grants into actionable information that affects tactics on the fire ground, including 

fact sheets on fire dynamics, structural integrity and firefighter 

health to help fire departments improve their operations. The 

FSTAR program has also produced guidance to help doctors provide 

rigorous physicals to firefighters to reduce the number of strokes, 

heart attacks, and injuries. 

Despite the effectiveness of the AFG and SAFER programs, 

many fire departments still need assistance meeting basic staffing, 

equipment and training needs. We ask the Subcommittee to reauthorize AFG and SAFER programs. The IAFC endorsed Senate bill 

829. This legislation would authorize funding for the AFG and 

SAFER grant programs through fiscal year 2023. Also, it removed 

the January 2, 2018, sunset date that would eliminate the programs. In addition, S. 829 would make technical and administrative changes to improve the program’s efficiency and reduce waste, 

fraud, and abuse. 

I would also like to recognize Dr. Onieal and the important role 

that U.S. Fire Administration plays. The National Fire Academy is 

the West Point or Quantico of the fire and emergency services. 

Using both in-person and online training, NFA educates tens of 

thousands of fire service leaders every year about how to adapt to 

emerging issues and lead their departments better. We congratulate the President for appointing Chief Keith Bryant as the U.S. 

Fire Administrator. 

I ask that the Committee also reauthorize USFA this year. It is 

important that USFA continue to have dedicated funding. This 

funding should be used to continue to develop policy and guidance, 

revise curricula at the NFA, and maintain infrastructure and information technology. I also encourage the USFA to provide guidance 

to fire departments as they address behavioral health and wellness 

issues. 

I thank the Committee for the opportunity to testify at today’s 

hearing. The AFG and SAFER programs and the USFA are important partners in helping local fire departments address an evolving 

all-hazards mission. On behalf of the nation’s fire chiefs, I look forward to working with the Committee to reauthorize these critical 

programs. Thank you very much. 

[The prepared statement of Chief Sinclair follows:] 
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Chairwoman COMSTOCK. Thank you. 

And I now recognize Captain Niemiec for five minutes to present 

his testimony. 

TESTIMONY OF CAPTAIN JOHN NIEMIEC, 

PRESIDENT, FAIRFAX COUNTY (VA) 

PROFESSIONAL FIRE FIGHTERS 

AND PARAMEDICS–INTERNATIONAL 

ASSOCIATION OF FIRE FIGHTERS LOCAL 2068 

Captain NIEMIEC. Thank you, Chairwoman Comstock, Ranking 

Member Lipinski, yakshemash, and distinguished members of the 

Subcommittee. Good morning. My name is John Niemiec, and I am 

the President of the Fairfax County Professional Fire Fighters and 

Paramedics. I appreciate the opportunity to appear before you 

today on behalf of the International Association of Fire Fighters 

and over 305,000 firefighter and emergency medical personnel who 

serve in every Congressional district in this nation. I come before 

you today to offer my full support for the SAFE and FIRE grant 

programs and urge the Subcommittee to reauthorize these programs. 

SAFER and FIRE grants have proven themselves to be highly effective, allowing local fire departments to make significant progress 

in their baseline capabilities. According to the 2015 needs assessment of the Fire Service by the National Fire Protection Association, SAFER and FIRE have helped local fire departments improve 

staffing, equipment and training levels. For example, 2010 to 2015, 

the number of fire departments serving midsized cities meeting 

safe staffing standards have increased by 25 percent. Such studies 

also show significant improvements in certain categories of personal protective equipment and training. For example, departments 

of all sizes have improved the percentage of personnel with Personal Alert Safety System, or PASS devices. In 2001, only 38 percent of fire departments equipped all responders on a shift with 

their own PASS device, a necessity to find injured or lost firefighter 

in an emergency. This figure jumped to 72 percent in 2015, a result 

NFPA speculates due to FIRE grant funding. 

Thousands of communities, large and small, across this nation 

have been aided by the SAFER and FIRE grant programs including 

my department, the Fairfax County Fire and Rescue Department. 

I have served the department for over 30 years and have seen firsthand the remarkable service delivery improvements we have 

achieved through both SAFER and FIRE. For example, Fairfax 

County received FIRE grants in 2015 and 2016 to provide training 

to 54 advanced life support providers, upgrading their emergency 

medical skills and certification. These awards exclusively allowed 

our department to upgrade all frontline responding units to the 

paramedic level, allowing the county to deliver high-quality EMS 

care in a more timely manner. 

Fairfax County has also benefited from SAFER grants, which allowed the county to hire an additional 49 firefighters, improving response capabilities by staffing all 14 ladder trucks with four personnel. This staffing level has allowed the county to reduce risk for 

the citizens, minimize property loss, and increase firefighter safety. 
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I am proud of the progress Fairfax County has made with the 

help of SAFER and FIRE grants, and many communities across 

America can say the same, yet despite the progress made in communities large and small, the need for funding through the SAFER 

and FIRE grant program persists. Many fire departments continue 

struggling to meet appropriate staffing, training and equipment 

standards. The 2015 NFPA needs assessment identified many of 

these weaknesses. For example, 49 of all departments have failed 

to formally train all of their personnel involved in structural firefighting. Fifty percent of departments operate without enough portable radios to equip all emergency responders on a shift, and 53 

percent of departments could not equip all firefighters with selfcontaining breathing apparatus. 

As you know, work has begun in the Senate to reauthorize these 

critical grant programs. Recently, the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee unanimously approved Senate bill 

829, the AFG and SAFER Program Reauthorization Act of 2017. 

The bill is a simple reauthorization of SAFER and FIRE. It makes 

several minor but necessary technical corrections and eliminates a 

sunset provision on the programs. The IAFF and all major national 

fire service organizations have worked collectively with the Senators for many months to help craft this bill and have offered it our 

enthusiastic endorsement. We believe SAFER and FIRE have been 

refined over the many years the programs have been in place. The 

grants are working effectively and efficiently, and we do not recommend making major changes to the programs. As you well know, 

SAFER and FIRE’s current authorization expires on September 

30th of this year, and the programs are due to sunset on January 

2, 2018. Therefore, I strongly encourage the Subcommittee to move 

swiftly to reauthorize SAFER and FIRE to reassure their continuance without interruption. 

Again, I’d like to thank the Subcommittee for the opportunity to 

testify today, and I’m happy to answer any questions you may 

have. Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Captain Niemiec follows:] 
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Chairwoman COMSTOCK. And we now recognize Mr. Hirsch for 

his testimony. 

TESTIMONY OF MR. STEVE HIRSCH, FIRST VICE CHAIR, 

NATIONAL VOLUNTEER FIRE COUNCIL; 

TRAINING OFFICER, SHERIDAN COUNTY FIRE DISTRICT #1, 

THOMAS COUNTY FIRE DISTRICT #4, 

AND GRINNELL FIRE DEPARTMENT (KS) 

Mr. HIRSCH. Thank you. My name is Steve Hirsch. I’m First Vice 

Chair of the National Volunteer Fire Council, which represents the 

interests of the nation’s more than a million volunteer fire, EMS 

and rescue personnel. I’d like to thank the Subcommittee and especially my own Congressman, Dr. Marshall, for inviting me here to 

testify today about the need to reauthorize AFG and SAFER as 

well as the U.S. Fire Administration. 

I want to begin by highlighting the critical need for Congress to 

reauthorize AFG and SAFER prior to January 2nd. As the Committee’s aware, there’s a provision in the current law that eliminates 

those programs if they’re not reauthorized before that date. This 

would be a severe blow to the nation’s fire service and would put 

thousands of committees across the country at risk. If you take 

only one thing away from my testimony, it should be the need to 

move quickly to reauthorize those programs. 

My own Sheridan County Fire Department’s been fortunate to 

receive grants for protective gear and hose, to replace a fire truck 

that was 50 years old, to buy a compressor to refill our air tanks 

without having to make a 60-mile round trip, for heavy-duty washing machines to keep our gear clean and eliminate carcinogens. 

Our neighboring departments use our washing machine and compressor, so the value of the program goes well beyond the benefit 

to our own department. 

I spend a lot of time teaching in all-volunteer fire departments 

across Kansas at least once a month, and I can tell you firsthand 

there’s an overwhelming amount of need. Those are small towns 

with very small tax bases. How can a department with an annual 

budget of $10,000 ever hope to replace bunker gear at $3,000 a person? How can they hope to buy a new brush rig to fight wildfires? 

Well, they have that hope because of the AFG program. 

Recently, I called the widow of a firefighter in my community 

who died in the line of duty in 1967. The department at that time 

had no gear and no formal training. Carroll Ferguson was killed 

when a chimney fell on him as he was fighting a fire at a rural 

house in the county. The impact of that death continues to reverberate in our community 50 years later. Firefighters risk their lives 

every time they respond to a call, and the AFG program helps to 

minimize that danger by helping departments buy equipment and 

get training that they would otherwise not be able to afford. 

The NVFC strongly opposes changes in the authorization that 

would divert money away from the AFG program or from local fire 

departments. The competition for this funding is very intense. 

There are a lot of departments that are applying that are not being 

funded and a lot of need that’s not being met. Any shift and 

changes out of the AFG program would only make things worse. 
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The SAFER program helps to increase or maintain a number of 

firefighters in the United States. Ten percent of the SAFER funds 

go to recruit and retain volunteers. These help departments create 

marketing plans to recruit new volunteers and establish benefit 

programs and have other retention strategies to keep volunteers in 

the department. 

The volunteer fire service is changing because the country’s 

changing, and that’s why the SAFER program is critical. The traditional staffing model where children live and work in the same 

community where they grew up and follow their parents into the 

volunteer fire service is changing. Young folks are more mobile. 

Folks are moving out of rural communities to find work and commuting longer distances to and from work. There are more households in which both adults in the home have jobs, and of course, 

that disrupts the ability of the volunteer fire department to staff. 

We can’t just sit back and wait for volunteers to come walking 

through our door. The SAFER gives local departments the tools to 

go out in the community and recruit folks to become volunteer firefighters. 

Our organization is also not seeking any major changes to the 

AFG or SAFER programs in the reauthorization. There are relative 

minor changes that we’re seeking that are outlined in my written 

testimony. 

Finally, the U.S. Fire Administration provides training to more 

than 100,000 fire and emergency service personnel each year. The 

USFA also performs research and collects data specific to the fire 

service and educates the public on the importance of fire safety. It 

is our organization’s belief that the U.S. Fire Administration does 

a great job given the resources available to them, and we’re not 

seeking any changes to the current authorization. 

If you’ll indulge me just a little bit for this farm boy volunteer 

firefighter from western Kansas, when you work this bill, when you 

talk with your colleagues, when you vote, I would implore you, in 

fact, I would beg you to think about Carroll Ferguson, who left his 

job at the meat counter of the local grocery store in June of 1967, 

never returning home. How much difference these programs could 

have made in that family’s life had they had proper equipment and 

good training, and that’s why these programs are so important. 

Even more so, I want you to think about who the person in that 

family who was the real hero, his widow, Marie, who was left without a husband and three very small children who didn’t have a 

daddy any longer. These grant programs are helping keep volunteer firefighters alive without any doubt in my mind. Those are 

firefighters who don’t get a paycheck. They do it because they love 

their fellow man. 

So thank you for your past support, thank you for listening to 

me, and thank you for helping keep our firefighters alive by supporting these programs. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Hirsch follows:] 
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Chairwoman COMSTOCK. I now recognize Dr. Horn to present his 

testimony. 

TESTIMONY OF DR. GAVIN HORN, 

RESEARCH PROGRAM DIRECTOR, 

ILLINOIS FIRE SERVICE INSTITUTE 

Dr. HORN. Chairman Comstock, Ranking Member Lipinski, and 

Members of the Subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to 

participate in this important hearing. 

As part of the larger discussion, I would like to focus my comments specifically on the American research enterprise that is supporting the fire safety of the nation through a component of the 

AFG grants, specifically, the Fire Prevention Safety Grant program. Between fiscal year 2011 and fiscal year 2015, a little over 

$170 million has been awarded from the Fire Prevention program, 

approximately $33 million of which has been devoted to the research and development activities, which I’ll refer to as R&D. A little over $6.5 million and six projects per year have been supported between fiscal year 2011 and 2015, a significant reduction 

from fiscal year 2006 to fiscal year 2010 where an average of nearly $10 million was awarded for over 11 projects per year. 

While a relatively small component of the overall AFG program, 

the fire prevention safety R&D activities are unique in that they 

support national programs, which strengthen local fire departments’ ability to utilize the larger AFG and SAFER programs. Indeed, this is the only program, only national funding program specifically devoted to enhancing the health, safety and effectiveness 

of firefighters through projects such as the one that you’ll see on 

the video screen that’s going to play behind me. 

The fire service is in desperate need of federal funding to advance research projects that support evidence-based policies to address longstanding issues in this dangerous occupation. At the 

same time, the risks, the hazards are evolving as the fire service 

responds to new operational realities and new operational missions. 

A variety of organizations and stakeholders developed a series of 

needs analysis and research agenda to support fire departments in 

the face of this changing risk profile. Documents such as Project 

Responder and Interagency Board Priority List along with firefighter-centric needs analysis produced by stakeholders and partners—the National Fallen Firefighters Foundation, the Fire Protection Research Foundation—in addition to specific word by NIST, 

their research roadmap for smart firefighting and NFPA’s United 

States Fire Service Needs analysis, quite important snapshots of 

the American fire service which I review in my written testimony. 

However, these documents are importantly reviewed very regularly and updated by the fire service stakeholders themselves, often 

with the research community. In each funding cycle for the Fire 

Prevention Safety grants, they provide invaluable support as the 

voice of the fire service to guide investments made by the AFG in 

this area. 

Stated bluntly, the Fire Prevention Safety R&D grant program 

is absolutely vital for a broad-based, action-oriented federal research program focused on the needs of the fire community, one 

that provides incredibly high impact for fire departments across the 
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country with relatively small investment. Largely due to the recent 

Fire Prevention Safety-supported research projects, significant advancements have had a direct and profound impact on the fire 

service. Our understanding of the hazards associated with structural firefighting, the need for appropriate staffing levels, effective 

and efficient tactics, and cardiovascular risks associated with firefighting have all had dramatically increased understanding due to 

the focused research support by this R&D program. We must continue to be evaluated as our landscape continues to evolve. 

Our understanding of the chemical and toxic exposure that a 

firefighter faces is beginning to come into focus, and our understanding of the post-traumatic stress impact is just now developing, 

and risks from outside the traditional response theater including 

violent incidents and changing costs related to drug—to the drugs 

are driving demand for changes in protection beyond the traditional formal considerations. And the world around us begins to 

embrace smart technologies and internet of things, we too are 

learning how to leverage this cyber physical infrastructure to improve our capabilities and our effectiveness. 

Impacting these areas, the R&D program has had significant 

broader impacts. It’s driven an increase in scientific literature focused on the firefighter themselves. Dr. Sara Jahnke from the National Development Research Institute did an analysis and showed 

that almost 70 percent of all articles that are referenced on the 

PubMed index with the term ‘‘firefighter’’ come from after the advent of R&D funding over the past ten years, 70 percent. It 

changes in a way academic researchers interact with the fire service have driven drastic improvement in the research to practice 

protocol. As a result, there are specific and focused efforts that 

have influenced a wide range of standards and policies across the 

country from PPE manufacturing to fire ground tactics, to health 

and safety practices, to purchasing decisions. Research is impacting 

practice. And this research has included broader impacts well beyond the fire service, adding to the state of science in many disciplines that support the fire service. 

So while the Fire Prevention Safety program has been successful 

in supporting the evolving needs of the fire service, there’s important opportunities that could lead to even greater reach of this program, which I detail in my written testimony, but a couple important points. 

Considering the high benefit-to-cost ratio, it would be appropriate to restore funding and award rates at the levels at fiscal 

year 2006 to fiscal year 2010 at a very minimum. It is also important to look at different funding mechanisms, providing for longer 

duration funding mechanisms which would allow longitudinal 

projects such as a five-year-plus potential for five more years of renewal would allow research to use the strongest research design 

available which will allow even greater scientific rigor and further 

increase credibility of the program. 

There’s been discussion for years of funding centers of excellence 

through the Fire Prevention Safety program, and there’s now a 

broad discipline—broad-based transdisciplinary group that can support that work and benefit from that. 
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It’s also important to continue to fund an increase of visibility for 

exploratory projects that can help lead the fire service’s understanding of some of the risks that we face on the fire ground. 

In summary, the Fire Prevention Safety Grant and particularly 

the R&D program is a relatively small component of the AFG activity but it has a broad national impact. It informs the conversation 

held by many of the fire service organizations sitting here. It supports fire service local departments by empowering improved purchasing decisions to the AFG grant program, better understanding 

of manpower requirements through SAFER, and informed development of local policies, procedures and practices based on the best 

science available. 

Thank you very much for the opportunity and welcome any questions at the appropriate time. 

[The prepared statement of Dr. Horn follows:] 
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Chairwoman COMSTOCK. Thank you. 

And I now recognize Chief Browning for five minutes. 

TESTIMONY OF CHIEF H. ‘‘BUTCH’’ BROWNING, JR., 

PRESIDENT, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION 

OF STATE FIRE MARSHALS, 

LOUISIANA STATE FIRE MARSHAL 

Chief BROWNING. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. It’s indeed an 

honor to be here. I’m Butch Browning. I’m the Louisiana State Fire 

Marshal and I’m currently president of the National Association of 

State Fire Marshals. Over my left shoulder is the Virginia State 

Fire Marshal, Brian McGraw. I appreciate his attendance and support here today. 

The National Association of State Fire Marshals represents the 

senior state officials in every state, so it’s a small group of 50 people who work very hard in their states to support their local fire 

departments, primarily drive fire prevention programs, fire investigation programs, and data programs, and I’ll talk a little bit 

about that in a minute. 

We want to make no doubt about it. The National Association of 

State Fire Marshals fully support the reauthorization of the AFG, 

the SAFER, and the Fire Prevention and Safety grants. In addition, as a personal product of the National Fire Academy, I’ll you 

it is the West Point or any other higher, most prestigious institution you can think of. What it does for our state and the people 

who go to that who have no opportunities in many cases to get 

leadership training is just phenomenal, and I certainly appreciate 

what they’ve done for my life, and you know, I just come before you 

as an old Louisiana boy, a south Louisiana boy, not north Louisiana, and your temperatures here remind me of being home. But 

I’ve just got to tell you, people are alive today, firefighters and citizens, in part to this entire grant program, and the gentlemen who 

are sitting up here today have seen many, many circumstances of 

death and loss, and you know, what I encourage you to do, and I 

think you’re doing that, I encourage you to look into the eyes of 

your firefighters in your districts because you will hear real stories 

of domestic defenders, and I appreciate that. 

At 14 years old, I got involved in the volunteer fire service and 

found it to be my passion, moved up the ranks, became a fire chief. 

About 6 months before Hurricane Katrina, we had an AFG grant 

in the hopper for interoperability, which we didn’t have those radios when Katrina came. We were awarded those radios months 

after, and our department was then ready to handle disasters, and 

those radios would have never been purchased had it not been for 

the AFG program. The staffing of firefighters across this country 

is phenomenal. We have to keep those things up. And of course, the 

fire prevention and safety. 

What I didn’t tell you about me is what got me into this business. When I was three years old, I was significantly burned in a 

fire. My dad subsequently joined the volunteer fire department and 

put me in the position that I’m in today. The story is what caused 

my fire was prior to codes and standards when water heaters were 

not 18 inches off the ground. Today they are. So I’ll tell you fire 
85 

prevention and safety have saved many children’s lives, and I certainly respect that and appreciate that. 

I come before you today representing the National Fire Marshals 

asking that we change the percentage that goes to fire prevention 

and safety. See, we believe that we need to move some funds from 

the open competition. We need to remove eight percent into fire 

prevention and safety to not only get more fire prevention and safety but to provide statewide support to what we do. You know, in 

the State of Louisiana, we had an operation Save a Life program. 

We’ve installed almost 35,000 smoke alarms across the state. In its 

first year, 12 people’s lives were saved. These alarms were installed 

by small, large and medium fire departments across the state, so 

we know it works. We know that saving lives is important. We 

know that fire prevention safety and data. We know that fire suppression forces, and we know that fire investigation and analysis 

is the way for us to protect the American fire problem. 

I’m going to leave you because I want to be brief, and it’s kind 

of on the heels of Mr. Hirsch’s story of Mr. Ferguson, who paid the 

ultimate sacrifice. This past Sunday, I had to give the eulogy to yet 

another Louisiana firefighter who gave their lives serving their 

community, a firefighter who was responding to a structure fire, 

and the firefighter didn’t make it. He was involved in a horrific accident in the fire apparatus, and I had to look into the eyes of that 

family, and what I’ll tell you that family’s telling you today is that 

we need more equipment, we need more firefighters, we need more 

prevention and safety. Those three things working together will go 

a long way in reducing America’s fire problem, and we can rewind 

to America burning. We can rewind to before we had some of the 

fire prevention programs and before we had some of the better 

training for firefighters and see that we made some great headway. 

This investigation works. 

So I come to you in partnership, I come to you in thanks, and 

I look forward to this process. 

[The prepared statement of Chief Browning follows:] 
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Chairwoman COMSTOCK. Thank you. Great. 

And I now recognize myself for five minutes for questions. 

As a longtime resident of Fairfax County, I recognize that I’ve 

had some of the concerns that you identified on structures and hazardous materials and all the things that we need to be dealing 

with, and that’s why I’m very interested in the Firefighter Cancer 

Registry Act that we’ve worked on together, and thank you for your 

efforts on highlighting that issue. 

How are we able to use technology both in that area as well as 

some of these other areas like, for example when you’re going into 

a structure, what technologies do we have now that might help to 

better identify where we’re going in keeping in touch with everyone. You mentioned the PASS devices that will help. But also 

things like some of the technology we’re using to develop lighter 

materials that people will have on to protect themselves as well as 

lighter and more refined and better materials for breathing apparatus so that you’ll be both protected but also long-term health consequences. So what breakthroughs are you seeing there and how 

can these grants help in those areas? I will start with Captain 

Niemiec but welcome you all to answer. 

Mr. Lipinski and I are on the Science Committee so very interested in how we can—and I’ve certainly seen this in my departments, the new technology and the real promise of both making 

safer communities but making life easier for our firefighters. I 

mean, it’s never easy but safer. 

Captain NIEMIEC. First and foremost, Madam Chair, I will say, 

you know, through the education, through the prevention—and we 

have always taken the mantra in Fairfax County of preventing the 

911 call, but how does that relate to the firefighters and paramedics in Fairfax County? Last week, several of my colleagues here 

met and were engaged and involved in a program called Wellness 

Fitness Initiative, and part of that program is doing just that, is 

looking at the wellness, looking at the prevention, and then should 

one of these firefighters or paramedics come down with a cancer, 

with, you know, cardiac disease, we want to set that standard so 

that that individual is able to, one, get back on the rig, and then 

to have the ability to have good quality of life. So we are setting 

those standards. That of course is coupled with the equipment that 

we currently have. That’s where one, the SAFER, dealing with individuals, dealing with personnel, and then as far as the FIRE 

grant, dealing with things, and because of these items, in Fairfax 

County we have been able to get from the AFG, we have been able 

to do a lot of the prevention, and then if a firefighter, if a firefighter is involved in an emergency situation, not only are we able 

to provide the training but we have the necessary tools to ensure 

that that firefighter or firefighters gets out alive. 

Chairwoman COMSTOCK. And others? I’m particularly interested 

in any sort of new devices that you can show us that I’d like to be 

able to demonstrate to my colleagues as we’re advocating more 

need for this. The more things that we can put in your hands and 

technology in that way, sometimes that’s a very vivid way to demonstrate if people can see how this will make your lives and your 

jobs safer. 
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Chief SINCLAIR. Yes. Thank you very much, Chairwoman Comstock, for the question. 

The first thing that I want to do is make sure that we recognize 

that a significant amount of information has been new to the fire 

service over the last couple of years since the research has come 

in. A lot of that has to do with the health of the firefighters. A significant doctrinal shift is ongoing right now in the fire service as 

it relates to transitional attacks, the way that we actually attack 

fires, because of what we now know due to the research being done 

by Dr. Horn and NIST and NIOSH that we’re not pushing fire like 

we previously thought, that we can actually hit it defensively and 

then transition into an offensive attack where we go inside, because once you knock the fire down from the outside and then transition to an interior attack, it is safer for the firefighters. 

Our modern home has been plasticized, and as those materials 

burn, they create these aromatic hydrocarbons that attach to the 

skin. In the video that you saw, you saw them wiping down, doing 

gross decon of the firefighters, and we know that 54 percent of 

those can be taken off the skin in the gross decon but that means 

that 46 percent of that cancer-causing aromatics will still remain 

on the firefighters’ skin. 

So relative to new technology, we just are beginning to see the 

governors opt in to FirstNet, which is the public safety broadband 

trust, and we will soon be having communications equipment that 

will be providing information to incident commanders, something 

like a recognized phone that has data streams and data elements. 

We should be able to have wearable technology whereby we will be 

able to find the X, Y and Z coordinates for every firefighter that 

is on the scene. All of that is being done in cooperation with these 

types of grants, this type of information, and we’re just right on the 

cusp of seeing a lot of things that are coming down the road in the 

next couple of years. Thank you. 

Chairwoman COMSTOCK. Thank you, and I see that I’m out of 

time, but I would invite any of you to share any of that information 

with the Committee so that we can, as we’re doing our job of advocating for these grants, really draw that picture for our colleagues. 

Thank you. 

Now I recognize Mr. Lipinski. 

Mr. LIPINSKI. Thank you. 

Captain Niemiec, dzien ́ dobre, and I’m not going to push my Polish any more than that. 

Chief Browning, you had mentioned that you had said we should 

look in the eyes of our firefighters, first responders, and learn 

about what they’re doing, and I want to thank all of you for—you 

know, we are here to do that. We do that back in home districts. 

I know I certainly do, and appreciate the work that you do, and we 

are here to help you better do that work beyond the front line. 

I want to ask Dr. Horn about some things, more things that may 

be helpful to get this research out there to the frontline. As you 

know, research and development is really a system of feedback 

loops between fundamental research, development, and then deployment. You discussed the research of practice needs and opportunities in your testimony, and also discussed the need for a dedicated pot of funding for applied research needs because agencies 
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such as NSF and NIH primarily support basic research. Please 

elaborate on the need for the Fire Prevention and Safety grant program and how it helps in translating research to the standards and 

tools used in the fire service community, and what more can be 

done to translate research into practice including through increased partnerships between researchers and firefighting organizations. 

Dr. HORN. Thank you very much for that question. It’s a very important question because the research dollars are difficult to come 

by and need to be allocated in the most effective manner possible. 

The AFG through the Fire Prevention Safety Research and Development grants ties the fire service into the grants from the very 

beginning of the process. So I mentioned a series of needs analysis 

and research agenda that exists, and those are all put together by 

the fire service. Various different aspects of the fire ground are considered and focused on that research agenda but those drive the 

grants that are being funded by the Fire Prevention Safety program. 

So the funding itself is actually driven by the needs of the fire 

service, and those needs are very often not focused on the applied 

research, getting some technology, getting some technique, informing policies, informing practices much like Chief Sinclair just mentioned, informing practice based on science, looking at tactics based 

on scientific principles. These are things that aren’t easily funded 

through National Science Foundation and NIH because it’s a tactical priority yet we can now make our firefighters safer, help them 

to make better decisions by looking at the broader understanding 

of the tactics that we are using in order to address these problems. 

So the fire service is setting the priorities for each of these 

grants. What’s also very unique about this program is that the fire 

service sits at the table. The firefighters themselves are reviewing 

each of these grants compared to those priorities and indicating 

whether or not that is fundable from a firefighter-specific perspective, and it goes to a scientific review process. Few other grant programs have that dual role, dual bosses for the project. So the firefighters themselves will not get to the scientific review unless it 

does have some strong fire service review. 

And then throughout these projects, the research-to-practice avenue has been incredibly—because firefighters become parts of each 

these projects. Advisory boards on all these projects usually involve 

fire service from across the country, east to west, north to south, 

from firefighters to fire chiefs, and they help guide the programs. 

The Fire Protection Research Foundation does a great job for departments or different agencies that don’t have contacts or direct 

access to national fire service. They help put together an advisory 

board for those so that the data becomes vetted through that group 

before it goes out to the fire service themselves. So the fire service 

is involved in this program from start to finish, and as a result, it 

directly translates to standards. It directly translates to policies, 

and increase in the change in some of the technologies have been 

discussed, and we could talk about many more from Chairwoman 

Comstock’s question are being developed because of the research 

that has the fire service at the table from the very beginning. 
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Mr. LIPINSKI. Thank you. Very quickly, Dr. Onieal, how does the 

Fire Administration make sure you’re leveraging the relevant research work of other federal agencies such as DHS, Science and 

Technology Directorate, NIST engineering lab, and the National 

Science Foundation? 

Dr. ONIEAL. Thank you for the question, Mr. Lipinski. We work 

very closely. We have staff that works with all of those different 

agencies. We more or less serve as technical experts. We give the 

information back to the fire and emergency services through our 

distribution outlets, and that’s typically—they’ll all us up all the 

time and they’ll give us an opportunity to participate. So we more 

or less serve as technical experts on whatever research is being 

done. 

Mr. LIPINSKI. All right. Thank you very much, and I yield back 

the balance of my time. 

Chairwoman COMSTOCK. And I now recognize Mr. Banks. 

Mr. BANKS. Thank you, Chairwoman Comstock, for organizing today’s hearing, and thanks to each of you for being here as well to 

testify before Congress about the importance of these grant programs as we debate the reauthorization of many of them, and also 

thanks for the hard work that you do to serve our local communities. 

Despite living in a time where fire prevention technology is more 

advanced than ever, it is unfortunate to hear that incidents of fire, 

property losses to fire and deaths caused by fire are increasingly 

common. This month alone, the Fort Wayne Fire Department in 

my district has already logged roughly 73 fire-related incidents 

ranging from passenger vehicle fires, cooking or equipment fires, 

and various smoke scares across Allen County, the largest county 

in the 3rd District of Indiana. Many of these incidents happen in 

the early hours of the morning when detection isn’t as responsive. 

For example, had firefighters not immediately responded to an 

automated alarm at 2:22 a.m. last week, my district could have lost 

its historic public library in Auburn, Indiana. The quick cooperation of citizens, fire detection technologies, and law enforcement in 

the aftermath of this incident confined damage mainly to the first 

floor rather than the entire structure. 

Awareness of fire prevention practices and FIRE grant program 

funding protects and benefits just about every Hoosier in my district in some way, shape or form. Reauthorizing these programs is 

crucial to keeping both people and property safe back home in Indiana, so I look forward to learning more about what priorities to 

consider moving forward from each of you. 

My first question is to Chief Browning. I received a letter last 

week from your colleague in my home state, Indiana Fire Marshal 

Jim Greeson. He expressed his support for your proposal to increase the funding allocation for fire prevention and safety and the 

FIRE Act grants program. He cites, for example, that with one of 

these grants in the State of Indiana, he was able to purchase 1,200 

smoke alarms for the deaf and hard of hearing. This seems like a 

worthwhile effort, but do states share the results of research and 

programs with other states to assure best practices and the effective use of funding? Is there a process to check if such efforts are 
99 

successful in meeting the program goals of reducing fire deaths and 

injuries? 

Chief BROWNING. Yes, sir, and thank you for that question. He’s 

absolutely correct, and I think the role of the state fire marshals 

are to partner with their local fire service and responders to provide programs just as that. We know early detection, as you stated, 

is one of the fundamental methods of getting people out of a building and provide free and clear and quick egress while firefighters 

are responding to suppress that fire. So programs such as early detection, such as education, such as research are exactly what the 

Fire Prevention and Safety program does, and you’ll see many successes across the country that are shared. 

You know, I could remember when the 9-volt battery smoke 

alarm first came out on the market. I was actually pretty young 

then, even though they’ve been out a long time. I can remember 

when they came out on the market, and people didn’t want them. 

They were scared. I remember testifying before the Louisiana legislature in 1991 to make that a requirement at the sale of homes because we knew people were dying before firefighters could get 

there, and it was the hardest thing in the world to pass. Today if 

you don’t have a smoke alarm in your home, you understand that 

that’s just as important as all of other necessities in your home, 

and what you’re seeing now is the upgrade to the ten-year lithium 

battery sealed alarms because now when firefighters go in the 

homes and install these alarms, they know there’s ten years of protection, not 9 months or 12 months of a 9-volt battery. 

Mr. BANKS. Very good. 

As a follow-up to Dr. Horn, you specifically state in your testimony that one of the most encouraging trends in the FP&S R&D 

programs is the high degree of collaboration among researchers investigating health and safety concerns among firefighters. Can you 

elaborate on how this collaboration takes place and particularly 

how knowledge and research is shared on the state and local level? 

Dr. HORN. Thank you very much for that question. This is a multidisciplinary, basically a transdisciplinary research program that 

has developed as a result of the nearly ten years of funding 

through the Fire Prevention and Safety R&D programs. The studies such as the video that was just displayed earlier have gone 

from a single topic to really trying to understand the fire service 

response in holistic perspective, understanding the changes in protection from one aspect such as increasing protection from the carcinogens, the chemicals on the fire ground can have impacts on 

other aspects such as increased heat stress and cardiovascular 

strain on the fire ground. 

So the studies such as the one you saw there includes individuals 

who have expertise in all of those areas where we have cardiovascular research experts from New York, from UIC as well as 

from Illinois, industrial hygienists who focus on chemical exposures 

from NIOSH as well as Underwriter Labs, who has studied the fire 

ground environment in the most complete manner possible. So this 

transdisciplinary group is necessary to be able to look at this from 

a higher level to be able to understand the tradeoffs in protection 

from one aspect to the other and how we can minimize or optimize 

that tradeoff there, and that has been an outgrowth, a direct out-
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growth of this R&D program which has brought firefighter-related 

research together in this one area. 

Mr. BANKS. Thank you. 

Yield back. 

Mr. ABRAHAM. [Presiding] Thank you. Ms. Esty, five minutes. 

Ms. ESTY. Thank you very much. I want to thank our Chairman 

and Ranking Member for this very important hearing we’re having 

today, and I really want to thank the six of you for your service 

and what you represent for firefighters across the country. Chief 

Sinclair, as you noted, I’ve worked very closely with the firefighters 

in Connecticut where we have 80 percent of our departments are 

staffed by volunteers. Eighty percent of all our firefighters are volunteers. I have a lot of small, rural communities, and they absolutely depend on these programs. They’re completely vital. A town 

of 4,000 or 3,000 people can’t possible afford to provide the protection for, as you say, Captain Niemiec, and several of you have mentioned, somebody got up in the middle of the night and puts their 

life on the line to save their neighbor, and we can’t thank them 

enough. So first, thank you for all you do. 

I wanted to highlight again what Chief Sinclair noted about the 

utter importance of supporting through these grants volunteer recruitment and retainment. In Connecticut, we figure that saved us 

$18 million. One of my best staffers left me because his lifelong 

dream was to become a firefighter. But in Connecticut, he has to 

pay $1,000 for the training to even take the test. That’s gone up 

substantially. So to even have the opportunity to take the test, 

young men and young women are having to pony up themselves, 

and that’s just wrong, and these grants are vital to keeping our 

communities safe. 

I wanted to turn a moment, Dr. Horn, to something that you 

talked about, this being the Science Committee, and about the research, but I think a lot of times we think about fancy new equipment and certainly the materials technology and some of that research is actually being done, and my district in Avon, Connecticut, 

provides some of the best reflective material that’s used to keep 

firefighters safe around the country. But the importance of practices and techniques of training, again, because so many of our firefighters are volunteers, can you talk a little bit more about the importance of that training that otherwise isn’t getting done? And 

then what, if anything, we can do to disseminate that information 

because, again, the best research in the world if it stays in the can 

or is in a manual that nobody looks at is not going to save the lives 

that we need to save so that they can go out and continue to save 

those of others. Again, thanks very much. 

Dr. HORN. Yeah, absolutely. It’s a great question, and an area 

that a specific focus of this research and development program is 

getting information out to the fire service. But let me take a couple 

steps back and actually discuss something that was brought up by 

Chief Sinclair, and that is the practices. An avenue that we have 

really started to look at is understanding tactics, how the actions 

that we take on the fire ground can change the risk profile for the 

occupants of the structure as well as the victim, and some of these 

things are very tightly held tactics that have gone through many 

years, have worked successfully for those departments. So we need 
101 

to understand the impact of changing a tactic but the impact of 

changing a tactic in my department will be very different than in 

Fairfax County. So we need to provide information on what can be 

done and how that broadly translates across the country because 

it has to be implemented locally. A department that has two members run it is very different than a department that has six members and five more apparatus coming behind. So we’re trying to 

provide information that can be broadly translated but also is widely available as well as generalizable to the different realities and 

the local jurisdictions. 

One of the great ways of being able to do that is through the 

internet. A lot of online programming is freely available as a result 

of this project, the project you saw on the video. We are right now 

working on a toolkit that should be available by the end of the year 

free for any department to get online to have access to that information, what does it mean, the tactical considerations, the policy 

considerations, but then access all the way down to the actual scientific academic peer-reviewed data if they’re interested in that. 

Most fire departments probably care about the how. So those tactics can have an impact. 

We often rely on our personal protective equipment and some 

tools to provide protection for us but in many ways we look at it 

from a hierarchy control. That should be one of the last levels that 

we’re focusing on. If we can avoid that, that’s what we’re looking 

at. There are, though—to answer Chairwoman Comstock’s question, there are technologies being funded by Fire Prevention and 

Safety to look at things such as particulate measurements on the 

fire ground because the tools that we have right now don’t do a 

good enough job to tell us when it is safe to take off our SCBA, for 

instance. So it’s coming, it’s broad-based, and it’s focused because 

of this type of program. 

Ms. ESTY. Again, I see my time is running out, but I want to say 

again how important this is because, again, especially our rural 

communities but frankly our cash-strapped cities like mine in Waterbury—I reached out to my fire departments over the last couple 

of days, and every single of them said they absolutely depend on 

these grants. They could not possibly staff their departments or 

provide the protective equipment that they need without this, especially when we see a lot of constrained state and local budgets. So 

having those resources at the federal level available to Americans 

across the country is incredibly important, and again, I want to 

thank the six of you for your service, please thank your departments, and I appreciate your helping in making—helping us make 

that case to our colleagues so we get this reauthorized at a higher 

appropriate level back to the levels it should have been at to help 

keep Americans safe. Thanks, all, very much. 

Mr. ABRAHAM. Dr. Marshall, five minutes. 

Mr. MARSHALL. Thank you, Chairman. 

Mr. Hirsch, a couple questions. What are the most critical needs 

that we face in northwest Kansas for your fire departments? What 

are your most critical needs? 

Mr. HIRSCH. Congressman, clearly the awareness, the safety culture that has changed in the fire service from 1963 when my father 

started in the volunteer fire service to 1987 when I started, 2017 
102 

has changed dramatically, and a lot of that has come because of the 

research projects that have been done. But I think we can never 

forget the fact that there are basic needs that are still not being 

met in rural fire departments out in our state. There are still departments that are borrowing gear from other departments. A department will replace their gear and transfer it to another department, gear that probably should be out of service but it’s better 

than what they had. Departments that have 50- or 60-year-old 

trucks, departments that have 40-year-old hose, departments that 

don’t have SCBAs to be able to do an aggressive interior fire attack 

to save lives. There are a lot of basic needs out there that still have 

not been met. There are departments in Kansas that still have dirt 

floors in their fire station. It’s just a fact of life, and they are small 

departments. They don’t have a very large tax base. These programs are just invaluable, and they’re invaluable to saving volunteer firefighters’ lives. 

Mr. MARSHALL. How would the USFA or the Fire Safety grant 

programs help with those types of needs? 

Mr. HIRSCH. Well, clearly, at least in the northwest part of the 

state where I live, there are countless departments that have gotten grants to pay for that type of equipment, but I will tell you that 

over the past 10 to 15 years, the amount of money that’s been appropriated into these programs has declined markedly, and so 

we’re—a lot of departments in Kansas were getting grants 15 years 

ago. There aren’t very many today because the competition is so 

stiff and the funding is so small. 

Mr. MARSHALL. Let’s kind of follow up on the grant process. I assume that you’re the person that writes these grants? 

Mr. HIRSCH. In my department, yes, and for a lot of my neighbors too. 

Mr. MARSHALL. How is that process going, or what challenges do 

you have in the grant process writing? 

Mr. HIRSCH. Writing the grants are not difficult. I’ve also been 

on the other side and reviewed grants with the fire administration. 

It’s made up of a peer process where firefighters actually get a 

chance to review grant applications from other departments. That 

also helps you write your own grants when it comes around too. 

But I’ll tell you that a lot of these volunteer fire chiefs, they’ve got 

lives, they have jobs, and that becomes very difficult for them to 

commit the amount of time. The grant process, the application 

process, is not that difficult but it does take some time. It takes a 

commitment of time. They’re already committing a lot of time and, 

frankly, committing a lot of their money to protecting their communities, and it’s difficult. It’s difficult, and especially I think with the 

decrease in the funding over time, after you’ve applied for a grant 

a time or two or three and you’re not awarded anything, then you 

get discouraged and you give up. 

Mr. MARSHALL. I think my next question’s for Dr. Onieal. What 

is the USFA doing in specialized training specifically, for rural voluntary fire departments? 

Dr. ONIEAL. The specific training that we provide to rural departments, believe it or not, occurs at every state. So if we talk about 

your state, Kansas, the state fire training system there and the 

state director delivers National Fire Academy training throughout 
103 

the state. I was out there last year. I spoke at a statewide conference, and they’re just simply doing a terrific job. The advantage 

to those firefighters is that when they do that, they’re registered 

in the National Fire Academy database, which means that their 

credential is carried wherever they go. If they move to a different 

department or even a different state, that credential carries with 

them. 

All the National Fire Academy courses are reviewed by the 

American Council on Education for college credit recommendation. 

They can transfer some of that credit into their college degree programs, and all of them also—well, the online courses that they’re 

available—are reviewed by the International Association for Continuing Education and Training and they receive CEUs. So through 

the state training system and classroom training and through the 

National Fire Academy’s online—— 

Mr. MARSHALL. What’s unique, though, for the rural training? 

What is more specifically the process? 

Dr. ONIEAL. Okay. I’m going to ask to get back to you, and I’ll 

give you a full list of the courses that we have available to you for 

the rural fire service. 

Mr. MARSHALL. Mr. Hirsch, maybe you can answer what’s more 

specific towards rural training? 

Mr. HIRSCH. Frankly, I don’t know that there’s a whole lot of difference between rural and urban firefighting. We don’t have—we 

have high rises; they’re grain elevators. But we’re still fighting 

house fires. We’re still trying to extricate people from wrecks. We’re 

still handling EMS calls and hazmat calls. The training is similar 

across the lines whether you’re rural, suburban or metro. 

Mr. MARSHALL. Okay. I yield back. Thank you. 

Mr. ABRAHAM. Thank you, Dr. Marshall. 

Ms. Bonamici, five minutes. 

Ms. BONAMICI. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman and Ranking Member, for holding this important hearing, and thank you to 

each and every one of you for being here today and for the important work you do. 

Like so many of my colleagues, I have been and continue to be 

a strong supporter of the FIRE and SAFER grant programs, and 

I know that numerous fire departments in the district I represent 

in Oregon, particularly the volunteer departments, rely on those 

funds to fulfill critical needs. 

The district I represent, Chief Sinclair might be familiar with it, 

is bordered by miles and miles and miles of the mighty Columbia 

River, and on Monday, just this past Monday, I had the opportunity to meet with the Maritime Fire and Safety Association, 

which is a wonderful collaborative organization with our neighbors 

to the north on the other side of the river. It was formed after the 

tragic death of a Coast Guard man and the critical injury of a firefighter after an inability to coordinate response to vessel fire on the 

Columbia River, and it is a fabulous collaboration, and it includes 

more than a dozen municipal fire agencies along the Willamette 

and Columbia Rivers, and many of those agencies have benefited 

from FIRE and SAFER grants. So it is a unique organization and 

it is a serious issue that they need to be prepared for. There’s a 

lot of vessel traffic in the river. 
104 

So I wanted to quote Bob Livingston. He’s the President of the 

Oregon State Firefighters Council, and he described these grants, 

the FIRE and SAFER grants, as some of the best federal programs 

and they yield a great deal of success, and this is what he says. 

He said ‘‘The reason for this is twofold. First, whether it is vital 

equipment that may save a life in the event of a cardiac arrest or 

having adequate staffing to handle the wide range of emergency response, these dollars are getting to the local level. Second, these 

dollars are allocated to local communities based on scientific-based 

information that allows Congressional members to come together in 

a bipartisan fashion to fund these important programs that make 

communities across this nation safer.’’ So I know he appreciates the 

grants, and I have too. 

Mr. Hirsh, I wanted to ask you, the SAFER program has helped 

career departments hire new and additional personnel to meet 

staffing safety standards and it requires a percentage of funding to 

go to volunteer departments for recruitment and retention of volunteer firefighters. So in your written testimony, you describe a recruitment program in Stayton, Oregon, which is not quite in my 

district, but they’ve had a lot of success in bringing on career and 

volunteer firefighters. So could you elaborate on the program and 

the extent to which the best practices that are developed are scalable and repeatable for other volunteer fire departments? 

Mr. HIRSCH. Yes. I think they are scalable and repeatable. In the 

particular one that you’re talking about in Stayton, they not only 

recruited people for their own fire department, but as a result of 

the work that they did there, they recruited firefighters for neighboring fire departments as well. I believe there were some 80 firefighters in their district and I think around 30 in neighboring districts. 

The National Volunteer Fire Council currently has a program as 

a result of a grant through this program called Make Me a Firefighter. If you want to look at it, makemeafirefighter.org is the 

website. What that does it, it sets up a portal for local fire departments to create their own resource there so that if someone wants 

to volunteer for their department, there’s a particular portal for 

that department that a person can sign up and see whether or not 

they need volunteers in that particular area, and—— 

Ms. BONAMICI. Wonderful. Thank you. 

And I want to get another question in. I know one of the proposals that’s under consideration is to allow that the SAFER grant 

funds be used to augment the pay of part-time or paid on-call firefighters to make them full-time personnel, and I wonder if any of 

our witnesses could explain, do you support this? Do you share concerns that there might be about that change? Anybody want to 

weigh in on that proposal? I see Chief Sinclair’s interested. 

Chief SINCLAIR. Thank you very much for the question. Many fire 

departments, mine as an example, are combination fire departments. We have reserves resident. The reserves are paid on-call 

firefighters. We have career folks and we have community volunteers. Many of our hires come from either our resident pool or our 

reserve firefighters, which are paid on-call firefighters. They are 

folks that are committed to the community, that are well known to 

the community. They’re well known to us because we know their 
105 

work ethic. And so having that pool of people that you can hire 

from is very appropriate. The conundrum in the current language 

is that because they’re already a part-time employee, you can’t hire 

them, even though they’re probably one of your most trusted resources and would make a very good transition to a career position, 

and so that’s the reason why we’re asking for the change is simply 

to be able to take people that are committed inside of that community, have already proven themselves to the organization, and the 

ability to transition. Many people that are in the career force came 

out of the volunteer or part-time ranks. 

Ms. BONAMICI. Thank you. That’s valuable input. And I see that 

my time is expired. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. ABRAHAM. Thank you for being here, gentlemen. It’s my time 

for some questioning. We appreciate your time away from your constituents. You are not only part of local security, fire security, but 

with global terror, now you’re part of national security, and we understand the risks that you incur every time you enter a building 

of unknown substance. 

Chief Browning, thanks for being the Fire Marshal for my great 

State of Louisiana. You do an exemplary job, so kudos. You deserve 

it. 

And my first question is to you. The State Fire Marshals are responsible and required to collect the fire data in their state for the 

U.S. Fire Administration. How does this affect my State of Louisiana’s resources, and do you consider that an unfunded mandate? 

Chief BROWNING. Yes, sir. First off, I’m going to tell you data collection is the most important thing. That’s how we learn the testimony we give you today not only in the prevention area, the need 

for equipment and the need to hire additional personnel. It’s that 

data that drives that, and that data starts at the local fire department. It comes to the State Fire Marshals. We collect that data, we 

scrub that data, and we report that to the U.S. Fire Administration. We receive no funds from the U.S. Fire Administration for 

doing that. It’s a burden that my state budget and I suspect other 

State Fire Marshals’ state budgets have to incur. 

Mr. ABRAHAM. Some of the fire service groups feel that any 

changes to the FIRE grant authorization will have an effect on 

eliminating the sunset provision to take effect on January 2018. 

What is the State Fire Marshals’ position on this? 

Chief BROWNING. Well, first off, we need to eliminate the sunset. 

It’s not my opinion that proper changes and right changes, smart 

changes, certainly changes that bring about prevention, changes 

that bring about better expenditure of that equipment grant, and 

better changes that allow us to hire and retain firefighters 

shouldn’t affect that sunset. 

Mr. ABRAHAM. And you’ve alluded to this question, but I’m going 

to ask it a little bit of a different way. You said in your testimony— 

I read it—that the most cost-effective way to protect the greatest 

number of individuals and property is to allocate additional funding for fire prevention and safety programs. How would additional 

funding for State Fire Marshal fire prevention and safety programs 

benefit fire departments in Louisiana, other states who do not pro-
106 

vide fire prevention or have the resources to adequately enact fire 

prevention programs? 

Chief BROWNING. Well, I believe that allocating money to state 

programs puts a footprint in every community. So in our State of 

Louisiana, anything that the State Fire Marshal does, our state 

fire training center does, when they do that, it affects every fire department in our state, even the most rural that can’t afford those 

resources, and even the largest and most progressive departments 

who we supplement the things that they do. So I think whether it’s 

a smoke alarm campaign, whether it’s a firefighter safety campaign, whether it’s a training campaign, the state does do a good 

job of touching people who otherwise may be left out. 

Mr. ABRAHAM. Mr. LaHood, five minutes for you, sir. 

Mr. LAHOOD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and let me thank the 

witnesses for being here today, and thanks for your service to the 

communities that you serve throughout the country. I appreciate it 

very much, and for your valuable testimony here today. 

I want to add my support for the AFG grant program and the 

SAFER grant program. I’ve seen it throughout my district. I have 

a fairly rural district in central and west central Illinois, 19 counties that cover from Quincy, Illinois, to Jacksonville, Illinois, to Peoria and all places in between, and whether it’s safety equipment, 

whether it’s personnel, it has been a valuable program and has 

helped to protect the safety of the constituents there and also to 

help the many departments that are in my district. So we need to 

continue to support those programs. 

Dr. Horn, thank you for being here today, and the work that gets 

done at the Illinois Fire Service Institute is very important, and 

I’ve seen it. In my State of Illinois, I served in the state legislature 

there and worked an awful lot with our local fire departments 

there, and the work that goes on there, you know, cross-cutting research, cardiovascular research, heat stress research, fire ground 

chemical exposure research, and the benefits that come about from 

that are applicable whether it’s rural or urban throughout the 

State of Illinois, and I think it’s really kind of a poster child for 

other areas across the country that can be done. What I guess I’m 

wondering, Dr. Horn, and I wanted you to comment on, when we 

look at the federal level and whether there’s any applicability of 

what we can do on the federal level based on what’s done in Illinois, I was wondering if you could comment on that, on your 

thoughts. 

Dr. HORN. First of all, thanks for the kind words and the supportive comments. And so just a quick clarification. Are you asking 

what could be done to replicate some of the work that is being done 

at Illinois Fire Service Institute? 

Well, we’re very fortunate at IFSI in that we have the state 

training academy, which IFSI is collocated with the University of 

Illinois, which is one of the leading Research Institutions in the 

country, and we have some very engaged individuals, both on the 

research side as well as on the fire service side to try to come together and locate problems. There certainly are opportunities to 

replicate that at other locations. For instance, Maryland’s state 

academy is also at their state university. 
107 

The important way that we can bring this forward is to make 

sure that we have the leadership that is willing to engage both 

sides and to understand the necessity that the fire service has for 

having this research translate into practice. It can be challenging 

for some academic research institutions depending on how they are 

receiving tenure, promotion, those sorts of things to potentially be 

engaged in some of this hands-on, more applied type of research as 

opposed to some of the more traditional funded research in those 

programs. So because we have the collocation of both of those, it 

allows us to do certain things like that where we can touch both 

the academic side and the hands-on side. 

I believe this is when we talk about the centers of excellence. 

Centers of excellence are actually now—we have people from across 

the country, the projects that we wish NIOSH and Underwriter 

Labs and Skidmore College in New York are a center that actually 

involved in multiple different agencies that is being replicated. 

Phoenix—University of Arizona is developing a project that includes us as well as NIOSH as well as Miami and other places. So 

the research is becoming, because of this R&D program, very 

transdisciplinary and across the country. 

So I believe it’s starting to be replicated in various different 

areas. But the ability to translate it to the fire service, if centers 

for excellence were to be funded, that’s one of the critical avenues 

because that is a challenging aspect of all of this, someone who can 

speak engineering or medical science and speak firefighter at the 

same time because often those two don’t overlap with each other, 

and that’s a critical avenue where I think we have some unique 

ability to fill in that gap. 

Mr. LAHOOD. Great. Thank you, Dr. Horn. Those are all my 

questions. 

Chairwoman COMSTOCK. Thank you. And my apologies to have 

to briefly leave. I have another hearing going on right now, a committee I serve on where the FBI building was an issue. So we’ve 

been wanting to get that in Virginia. I know my Maryland colleagues had other ideas. I think we all agreed we didn’t want it in 

D.C. 

But thank you all for your time and your expertise. We really appreciate all of your testimony and the members for their questions. 

I think as you can see from today’s hearing, we are all united in 

our interest in continuing the good work that you have on here and 

that you’ve done here, and we appreciate all you are doing in our 

respective communities and for the country. 

So the record will remain open for two weeks for additional written comments and written questions from members, and I’ll also 

reiterate, any of the different technology items and things that you 

would like us to—any visuals that we can highlight for our colleagues will be very helpful as we go forward with our September 

30th deadline that we want to make sure we continue the good 

work you are doing. 

So the hearing is now adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 11:41 a.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.] 

(109) 

Appendix I 

ANSWERS TO POST-HEARING QUESTIONS
110 

ANSWERS TO POST-HEARING QUESTIONS

Responses by Dr. Denis Onieal 
111 
112 
(113) 

Appendix II 

ADDITIONAL MATERIAL FOR THE RECORD
114 

LETTERS SUBMITTED BY SUBCOMMITTEE

CHAIRWOMAN BARBARA COMSTOCK
115 
116 
117 
118 
119 
120 
121 
122 
123 
124 

LETTER SUBMITTED BY SUBCOMMITTEE

RANKING MEMBER DANIEL LIPINSKI

Æ