U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE

WASHINGTON : 

For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office

Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: toll free (866) 512–1800; DC area (202) 512–1800

Fax: (202) 512–2104 Mail: Stop IDCC, Washington, DC 20402–0001

37–985PS 2008

THE UNITED STATES FIRE

ADMINISTRATION REAUTHORIZATION:

ADDRESSING THE PRIORITIES

OF THE NATION’S FIRE SERVICE

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON TECHNOLOGY AND INNOVATION

COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE AND

TECHNOLOGY

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

OCTOBER 2, 2007

Serial No. 110–59

Printed for the use of the Committee on Science and Technology

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.house.gov/science

(II)

COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

HON. BART GORDON, Tennessee, Chairman

JERRY F. COSTELLO, Illinois

EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas

LYNN C. WOOLSEY, California

MARK UDALL, Colorado

DAVID WU, Oregon

BRIAN BAIRD, Washington

BRAD MILLER, North Carolina

DANIEL LIPINSKI, Illinois

NICK LAMPSON, Texas

GABRIELLE GIFFORDS, Arizona

JERRY MCNERNEY, California

LAURA RICHARDSON, California

PAUL KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania

DARLENE HOOLEY, Oregon

STEVEN R. ROTHMAN, New Jersey

JIM MATHESON, Utah

MIKE ROSS, Arkansas

BEN CHANDLER, Kentucky

RUSS CARNAHAN, Missouri

CHARLIE MELANCON, Louisiana

BARON P. HILL, Indiana

HARRY E. MITCHELL, Arizona

CHARLES A. WILSON, Ohio

RALPH M. HALL, Texas

F. JAMES SENSENBRENNER JR.,

Wisconsin

LAMAR S. SMITH, Texas

DANA ROHRABACHER, California

ROSCOE G. BARTLETT, Maryland

VERNON J. EHLERS, Michigan

FRANK D. LUCAS, Oklahoma

JUDY BIGGERT, Illinois

W. TODD AKIN, Missouri

JO BONNER, Alabama

TOM FEENEY, Florida

RANDY NEUGEBAUER, Texas

BOB INGLIS, South Carolina

DAVID G. REICHERT, Washington

MICHAEL T. MCCAUL, Texas

MARIO DIAZ-BALART, Florida

PHIL GINGREY, Georgia

BRIAN P. BILBRAY, California

ADRIAN SMITH, Nebraska

PAUL C. BROUN, Georgia

SUBCOMMITTEE ON TECHNOLOGY AND INNOVATION

HON. DAVID WU, Oregon, Chairman

JIM MATHESON, Utah

HARRY E. MITCHELL, Arizona

CHARLIE A. WILSON, Ohio

BEN CHANDLER, Kentucky

MIKE ROSS, Arizona

LAURA RICHARDSON, California

BART GORDON, Tennessee

PHIL GINGREY, Georgia

VERNON J. EHLERS, Michigan

JUDY BIGGERT, Illinois

ADRIAN SMITH, Nebraska

PAUL C. BROUN, Georgia

RALPH M. HALL, Texas

MIKE QUEAR Subcommittee Staff Director

RACHEL JAGODA BRUNETTE Democratic Professional Staff Member

COLIN MCCORMICK Democratic Professional Staff Member

TIND SHEPPER RYEN Republican Professional Staff Member

PIPER LARGENT Republican Professional Staff Member

MEGHAN HOUSEWRIGHT Research Assistant

(III)

C O N T E N T S

October 2, 2007

Page

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

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

Opening Statements

Statement by Representative David Wu, Chairman, Subcommittee on Technology and Innovation, Committee on Science and Technology, U.S. House

of Representatives ................................................................................................ 11

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 12

Statement by Representative Phil Gingrey, Ranking Minority Member, Subcommittee on Technology and Innovation, Committee on Science and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives ............................................................... 13

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

Prepared Statement by Representative Jim Matheson, Member, Subcommittee on Technology and Innovation, Committee on Science and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives ............................................................... 16

Prepared Statement by Representative Harry E. Mitchell, Member, Subcommittee on Technology and Innovation, Committee on Science and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives ............................................................... 16

Witnesses:

Mr. Gregory B. Cade, Assistant Administrator, Federal Emergency Management Agency; U.S. Fire Administrator, United States Fire Administration,

Department of Homeland Security

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 16

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 18

Biography .......................................................................................................... 23

Dr. Sivaraj Shyam Sunder, Director, Building and Fire Research Laboratory,

National Institute of Standards and Technology, Department of Commerce

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 23

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 25

Biography .......................................................................................................... 28

Mr. Steven P. Westermann, President and Chief Fire Officer, International

Association of Fire Chiefs

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 29

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 31

Biography .......................................................................................................... 33

Captain Robert Livingston, Legislative Director of the Oregon State Council

of Fire Fighters, International Association of Fire Fighters

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 34

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 35

Biography .......................................................................................................... 38

Mr. Gordon Henderson, Deputy Chief of Operations, Rome-Floyd County Fire

Department; Past President of the Georgia State Firefighters Association,

National Volunteer Fire Council

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 39

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 41

Biography .......................................................................................................... 43

Page

IV

Dr. John R. Hall, Jr., Assistant Vice President, Fire Analysis and Research,

National Fire Protection Association

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 44

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 46

Biography .......................................................................................................... 50

Discussion ................................................................................................................. 51

Appendix 1: Answers to Post-Hearing Questions

Mr. Gregory B. Cade, Assistant Administrator, Federal Emergency Management Agency; U.S. Fire Administrator, United States Fire Administration,

Department of Homeland Security ..................................................................... 64

Dr. Sivaraj Shyam Sunder, Director, Building and Fire Research Laboratory,

National Institute of Standards and Technology, Department of Commerce . 73

Mr. Steven P. Westermann, President and Chief Fire Officer, International

Association of Fire Chiefs .................................................................................... 77

Captain Robert Livingston, Legislative Director of the Oregon State Council

of Fire Fighters, International Association of Fire Fighters ............................ 80

Mr. Gordon Henderson, Deputy Chief of Operations, Rome-Floyd County Fire

Department; Past President of the Georgia State Firefighters Association,

National Volunteer Fire Council ......................................................................... 83

Dr. John R. Hall, Jr., Assistant Vice President, Fire Analysis and Research,

National Fire Protection Association .................................................................. 85

Appendix 2: Additional Material for the Record

Statements of support for the reauthorization of the United States Fire Administration, submitted for the record by Chairman David Wu ...................... 90

(1)

THE UNITED STATES FIRE ADMINISTRATION

REAUTHORIZATION: ADDRESSING THE PRIORITIES OF THE NATION’S FIRE SERVICE

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 2, 2007

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, SUBCOMMITTEE ON TECHNOLOGY AND INNOVATION, COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY, Washington, DC.

The Subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10:05 a.m., in Room

2318 of the Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. David Wu [Chairman of the Subcommittee] presiding.

2

3

HEARING CHARTER

SUBCOMMITTEE ON TECHNOLOGY AND INNOVATION

COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

The United States Fire

Administration Reauthorization:

Addressing the Priorities

of the Nation’s Fire Service

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 2, 2007

10:00 A.M.–12:00 P.M.

2318 RAYBURN HOUSE OFFICE BUILDING

1. Purpose

On Tuesday October 2, 2007, the Subcommittee on Technology and Innovation of

the House Committee on Science and Technology will hold a hearing to explore the

priorities of the fire service community for the U.S. Fire Administration (USFA).

The witnesses will discuss the effectiveness of USFA’s current activities, priorities

for future research and development and training activities, and areas of greatest

concern and importance for the upcoming reauthorization.

2. Witnesses

Assistant Administrator Gregory B. Cade is the United States Fire Administrator.

Dr. Sivaraj Shyam-Sunder is the Director of the Building and Fire Research Laboratory (BRFL) at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).

Chief Steven P. Westermann is the President and Chief Fire Officer of the International Association of Fire Chiefs (IAFC).

Captain Robert Livingston is the Captain of the Salem, Oregon Fire Department,

and is the representative of the Oregon State Council of Fire Fighters of the International Association of Fire Fighters (IAFF).

Chief Gordon Henderson is the Past President of the Georgia State Firefighters’

Association, Chairman of the Georgia State Firefighters’ Association/Georgia Fire

Chiefs Association Joint Legislative Committee, representing the National Volunteer

Fire Council.

Dr. John R. Hall is the Assistant Vice President, Fire Analysis and Research at

the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA).

3. Overarching Questions

The hearing will address the following overarching questions:

• What is the current status of USFA core activities, including training through

the National Fire Academy, educational programs, and the National Fire Incident Reporting System?

• What are the major priorities of the fire service community and USFA for the

agency’s reauthorization?

• What is the status and budget of USFA research activities? How are research

activities prioritized and how does USFA leverage the fire-elated research activities of other federal agencies such as the National Institute of Standards

and Technology (NIST) and the Department of Homeland Security’s Science

and Technology Directorate?

• How does USFA bring the needs and expertise of the fire service community

to the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) larger mission of disaster

preparedness and response? How does USFA support State and local fire

agencies?

4

1 Current data are not readily available, but according to the International Association for the

Study of Insurance Economics, in 2003 the U.S. suffered 4,300 fire-related deaths, while Japan,

the country with the second highest number, suffered 2,300 (http://www.genevaassociation.org/

FIRE%20N°22.pdf).

4. Background

History of the USFA

In the early 1970’s the President’s National Commission on Fire Prevention and

Control released a report entitled America Burning which presented a bleak assessment of fire safety in the U.S. According to the report, nearly 12,000 citizens and

250 firefighters lost their lives annually to fires in the United States. An additional

300,000 Americans suffered fire related injuries each year. In response to these findings, Congress passed the Federal Fire Prevention and Control Act of 1974 (P.L. 93–

498), which created the National Fire Prevention and Control Administration within

the Department of Commerce. In 1978 Congress changed the agency’s name to the

U.S. Fire Administration and subsequent governmental reorganization by President

Carter in 1979 placed USFA within the newly created Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). USFA still resides within FEMA, which is now under DHS,

and it operates from the national Fire Academy campus in Emmitsburg, Maryland.

USFA’s Core Activities

When it was established in 1974, USFA’s stated goal was to reduce fire-related

fatalities in the Nation by half—bringing the number to approximately six thousand

per year within a generation. By 1998, the agency had met this goal, and these

numbers continue to drop. However, according to the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) the U.S. still has on of the highest rates of death, injury, and property loss due to fire among all industrialized nations. NFPA reports that in 2005

there were 3,675 civilian fire deaths, 17,925 fire injuries, and an estimated $10.672

billion in direct property losses due to fire.1 They estimate that the fire fatality rate

is 14.8 per million. Also, USFA reports that in 2006, 106 firefighters died in the line

of duty.

USFA continues to combat these high fire losses with activities in training, education and fire awareness, data collection, research, and the administration of the

Fire Grant programs.

Training: USFA’s National Fire Academy (NFA) offers educational opportunities

for the advanced professional development of mid- and senior-level fire and emergency medical services (EMS) officers, as well as allied professionals involved in fire

prevention and safety activities. The NFA also develops and delivers educational

and training programs that supplement and support State and local fire service

training. At the campus in Emmitsburg, the NFA teaches approximately 8,900 students annually. NFA curriculum reaches another 73,000 students through support

and partnership with State and local programs, and their courses reach an additional 200,000 professionals through web-based distance learning programs. The

NFA shares the Emmitsburg Campus with FEMA’s Emergency Management Institute (EMI). Together these two entities form the National Emergency Training Center. In FY 2007, USFA funded training activities at $10.7 million, approximately

$700,000 over the previous year.

Public Education and Awareness: Through partnerships and special initiatives,

USFA involves the fire service, the media, other federal agencies, and safety groups

in the development and delivery of fire safety awareness and education programs.

These programs are targeted to those groups most vulnerable to the hazards of fire,

including the very young, elderly people, and the disabled. USFA is also highly engaged in educational activities to improve firefighter health and safety in an effort

to reduce the number of firefighter fatalities and injuries.

Data Collection: USFA’s National Fire Data Center (NFDC) administers the National Fire Incident Reporting System (NFIRS), which collects, analyzes, and disseminates data and information on fire and other emergency incidents to State and

local governments, and the fire community. The NFDC provides a nationwide overview and analysis of the fire problem, identifying problem areas for which prevention and mitigation strategies are needed. Examples of applications of the NFIRS

data can be found in USFA authored reports on topics such as Structure Fire Response Times, Fire and Older Adults, and Candle Fire in Residential Structures.

Research and Related Activities: Through research, testing and evaluation, USFA

works with federal agencies, like NIST and the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), and private organizations to promote and improve fire and life safety.

5

Research conducted within these partnerships focuses on a variety of topics, such

as fire suppression technology, optimal fire department coverage to reduce risk, and

research to enhance firefighter health and safety.

Fire Grants: The Assistance to Firefighters Grants and the Staffing for Adequate

Fire and Emergency Response (SAFER) grants, generally referred to as the FIRE

grants, are administered through the Office of Grants and Training within FEMA.

Through a Memorandum of Understanding, USFA drafts the guidance for proposals

and manages the peer review process for the grants. These programs are authorized

separately from USFA.

Fire Research Activities at NIST

NIST has been involved in fire technology related research since the turn of the

century and Americans have benefited from standards development work by NIST’s

Building Fire and Research Laboratory (BFRL) in areas such as smoke detector

technologies and flame retardant mattresses and children’s sleepwear. More currently, BFRL has been working on improving fire alarm panel displays in buildings

and thermal imagers to enhance vision for firefighters, among other projects. In addition to research to aid standards development, BFRL assists in the technical investigations of major fire incidents, like the collapse of the World Trade Center and

the Station Nightclub fire in Warwick, Rhode Island.

NIST collaborates with USFA on many of USFA’s research projects. The Federal

Fire Prevention and Control Act of 1974 gave NIST authority to perform and support research on fire-related issues and in 2002, NIST and FEMA signed a memorandum of understanding to establish a framework for NIST to serve as a standards

and measurement science resource for FEMA in areas of fire, disaster prevention,

and homeland security. Funding for fire research at BFRL has remained relatively

flat for the past 26 years: in 1980 fire research at BFRL received $7.3 million (2006

dollars) and $8.2 million in 2006. BFRL’s grants to fund extramural fire research,

and stimulate the fire science and engineering professional pipeline dropped from

$4.2 million (2006 dollars) in 1980 to $1.3 million in 2006.

5. Priorities for Reauthorization and General Issues

USFA’s current authorization will expire at the end of fiscal year 2008. Priorities

in the reauthorizing legislation will address updating NFIRS, addition of curriculum

topic areas for the NFA, and increased focus on firefighting in the wildland-urban

interface. Other issues demanding attention in light of reauthorization are the funding and prioritization for research activities and educational programs.

NFIRS Update

Updating NFIRS is one of the fire community’s most urgent priorities as timely

and accurate fire incident data is a crucial resource for local fire departments and

policy-makers. The current system captures data from approximately 21,000 fire departments across the Nation and records about one million fires a year as well as

13 million other emergency incidents. Though participation in NFIRS is required to

be a recipient of FIRE grant money, USFA estimates they still only capture about

50 percent of the fires that happen annually. Another concern is that the current

reporting system is slow and bureaucratic. To report incidents, local departments

send their data to a State office, either via a paper form or a computer file. The

state then periodically sends their compiled data to the National Fire Data Center

in Emmitsburg. This system can delay reporting of the incidents to the database by

up to a year. Both USFA and the fire service community would like to see a more

modern reporting system that would allow for real-time reporting of incident data

on a web-based platform. They believe that transforming the system in this manner

will speed up reporting and bring NFIRS closer to capturing data on all the fire and

emergency incidents that occur in the Nation.

NFIRS was last updated in 1999 to include reporting on a broader range of emergencies to which fire departments respond. Cost estimates for creating a web-based,

real-time reporting system range from $3 to $5 million over three years. These costs

reflects both the development of the system and capital investments in IT software

or hardware that USFA would have to make.

Training Curriculum

The training available at NFA’s Emmitsburg campus and through their partnerships and distance learning programs is a vital resource to the fire service and allied professionals. In most cases, these courses are unique. As such, NFA strives to

work with partners from local, State, and fire service organizations to keep curriculum up to date and aligned with the needs of the fire service. The fire service

6

2 U.S. Fire Administration Topical Fire Research Series; Vol. 2, Issue 16, March 2002: Fires

in the Wildland/Urban Interface

community has identified additional programmatic areas that are of key concern,

though in many cases NFA is has been proactive in engaging in these areas already.

They include:

• Firefighting in the Wildland-Urban Interface (WUI): WUI areas are developed

sites that are adjacent to wildland areas. This proximity to forests, grasslands

and other undeveloped areas increases the fire risk to these homes. The

methods of fighting forest fires are fundamentally different than those of

fighting structure fires and unfortunately many fire departments that must

protect the homes and businesses in these areas do not have personnel properly trained in this type of firefighting. Development in these areas is increasing. Thirty-eight percent of new home construction in the Western U.S. is in

these types of areas2 and according to the Second Needs Assessment of the

U.S. Fire Service completed by USFA and NFPA in 2006, only 24 percent of

fire departments could fight a fire in the WUI with local personnel. In response to this growing problem, USFA has partnered with the National Wildfire Coordinating Group to create curriculum that would teach structure firefighters the core competencies needed for wildfires.

• Emergency Medical Service (EMS) Activities: Fire department-based EMS operations across the country account for 90.8 percent of the emergency medical

first response in the Nation’s 200 most populous cities. Nearly every firefighter receives emergency medical training. Because of the fire service’s large

role in EMS activities, the fire service community would like to ensure that

the NFA continue its high-level EMS management courses.

• Fighting Fires Involving Hazardous Materials: Fires involving a variety of

chemicals and other hazardous materials pose unique technical and safety

risks to firefighters. Many departments across the country do not have

enough adequately trained firefighters to respond to fires or other emergencies involving hazardous materials. The NFA currently offers classes to

train fire and emergency service providers, as well as other local officials, on

issues related to mitigation, prevention and response to the incidents involving hazardous materials that are either accidental or terrorist in nature.

In addition to ensuring that the NFA spends adequate resources on curriculum

development, the fire service community, especially volunteer departments, would

like to highlight the importance of ‘‘train the trainer’’ courses and material. USFA

has made a concerted effort to make many of their courses web-based or partnered

with a local organization. However, there are still many courses that require a trip

to Emmitsburg and volunteer firefighters are often faced with paying their own

travel expenses and using vacation time from their jobs to attend valuable NFA

classes.

Research and Related Activities

USFA has been very resourceful in leveraging limited research funds to accomplish many projects important to the fire service. In FY 1999, USFA’s funding for

research was $500,000. Re-budgeting by USFA in FY 2000, and increased Congressional emphasis in the FY 2001 and FY 2002 reauthorization more than doubled

this funding. In FY 2000, USFA funded research activities at $2 million, and for

the next two fiscal years, the research funding matched the authorization levels of

$3 million (FY 2001) and $3.25 million (FY 2002). In that authorization (P.L. 106–

503), Congress requested that USFA submit a report describing their research agenda and the plans for its implementation. USFA submitted a report detailing this

agenda in March of 2001, compiling it based on priorities identified at a series of

workshops with fire community stakeholders. Working from USFA’s overall goal for

the research—reducing the loss of life to fire by 15 percent over five years—these

workshops identified both broad needs, such as technology transfer, and very specific research goals in areas such as fire suppression and personal protective equipment. This agenda has not been officially updated since USFA submitted the agenda

to Congress in 2001. In June of 2005, the National Fallen Firefighters Foundation

held the National Fire Service Research Agenda Symposium at USFA facilities in

Emmitsburg. The purpose of this symposium was to produce a document that

prioritizes areas where research should be directed to improve firefighter health and

safety. The symposium outlined close to forty areas of research in line with that

goal, well more than USFA and its partners can fund.

7

USFA’s Role Within FEMA/DHS and Disaster Preparedness

In February of 2005, IAFC convened a summit of the major fire service organizations to discuss what they perceived as a declining budget and role for USFA within

DHS. Then Fire Administrator David Paulison addressed the organizations, maintaining that while some USFA programs had been cut over the last four years, the

cuts were not drastic and some programs were being maintained by other means

at DHS. The fire service organizations expressed their opinion that as the largest

contingent of first responders, who respond to a range of disasters, that the fire

service should maintain a highly visible role in DHS and FEMA with regard to disaster preparedness and response.

7. Proposed Bill Summary

Section 2. Findings

Establishes Congressional findings that: fire deaths, injuries, and property loses

in the U.S. are the highest in the industrialized world; that USFA provides crucial

support to State and local fire agencies; the collection of data on fire incidents is

a vital tool for local departments and national policy-makers; the research and development activities performed by USFA in collaboration with NIST and other federal agencies help to provide firefighters with the most advanced equipment and

knowledge possible; and that USFA should continue to actively advocate for the fire

service within the Department of Homeland Security.

Section 3. Authorizations

Authorizes USFA at $70,000,000 for fiscal year 2009, $72,100,000 for fiscal year

2010, $74,263,000, and $76,490,890 for fiscal year 2012.

Section 4. Education and Awareness Activities

Authorizes USFA to collaborate with social scientists to conduct education and

awareness activities focusing on promoting fire prevention and safety for the general

public, with a special focus on vulnerable groups including children and the elderly.

Section 5. Training Activities

Authorizes additional curriculum at the National Fire Academy (NFA) addressing

training related to firefighting in the wildland-urban interface (WUI), emergency

medical services (EMS) management, and handling issues relating to fire and spills

of hazardous materials. Authorizes curriculum development and courses in the field

of instructor training for instructors involved in firefighter training activities.

8

Section 6. National Fire Data Center

Directs USFA to update the National Fire Incident Reporting System (NFIRS) to

speed reporting and to capture more incident information. It authorizes $5 million

total for FY 2008 through FY 2010.

Section 7. Research and Related Activities

Authorize additional research into firefighting technologies and techniques for the

wildland-urban interface.

Section 8: Definitions

Defines ‘‘Administrator,’’ ‘‘Wildland-Urban Interface,’’ and ‘‘Hazardous Materials.’’

9

DRAFT USFA REAUTHORIZATION BILL

H.R. ######

United States Fire Administration Reauthorization Act of

2007

Section 1. Short Title

Section 2. Findings

1) The loss of life due to fire in the United States has dropped significantly over

the last 25 years. However, the United States still has one of the highest

fire death rates in the industrialized world, with the National Fire Protection

Association reporting 3,675 civilian fire deaths, 17,925 civilian fire injuries,

and $10.672 billion in direct losses due to fire in 2005. In 2006, the United

States Fire Administration reported 106 on-duty firefighter deaths.

2) The United States Fire Administration provides crucial support to the Nation’s 30,300 fire departments through training, emergency incident data collection, fire awareness and education, and support of research and development activities for fire prevention, control, and suppression technologies.

3) The collection of data on fire and other emergency incidents is a vital tool

both for policy-makers and emergency responders to identify and respond to

emerging hazards. Updating the U.S. Fire Administration’s data collection

capabilities is essential for accurately tracking and responding to the magnitude and nature of the Nation’s fire problem.

4) The research and development activities performed by National Institute of

Standards and Technology, USFA, and non-governmental organizations on

fire technologies and standards setting for these technologies gives the Nation’s firefighters access to the most effective firefighting tools possible.

5) USFA is one of the only channels between State and local fire agencies and

the Federal Government, and as such deserves a prominent place within the

Department of Homeland Security.

Section 3. Authorization of Appropriations

Section 17(g) (1) of the Federal Fire Prevention and Control Act of 1974 (15 USC

2216(g) ) is amended by striking subparagraphs (A) through (K) and inserting the

following:

‘‘ (A) 70,000,000 for fiscal year 2009;

‘‘ (B) 72,100,000 for fiscal year 2010;

‘‘ (C) 74,263,000 for fiscal year 2011;

‘‘ (D) 76,490,890 for fiscal year 2012.’’

[Specific authorization of funds (either amount or percentage) to perform the research and related activities authorized 15 USC Sec. 2207]

Section 4. Fire Awareness and Educational Activities

[The Administrator shall collaborate with social scientists to develop, evaluate,

and implement best practices for educating and promoting behavior change with regard to fire awareness and prevention among the general public, especially among

vulnerable or high risk groups such as children, the elderly, minorities, and firefighters.]

Section 5. The National Fire Academy

Section (d)(1) of 15 USC 2206 is amended by re-designating sections (I) to (N) and

inserting:

(I) Response tactics and strategies for dealing with fires occurring at the

wildland-urban interface.

(J) Response tactics and strategies for fire involving hazardous materials.

(K) Advanced Emergency Medical services training.

[The Administrator shall make such sums as are necessary authorized available

to engage in the ‘‘training of trainers’’.]

[The Administrator shall make such sums as are necessary available to carry out

the activities in section (d)(2).]

10

Section 6. National Fire Incident Reporting System

$1.67 million each fiscal year FY 2009, FY 2010, and FY 2011 of the funds authorized in Section 3 shall be used to update the National Fire Incident Reporting system to a web-based, real-time, incident reporting data-base. Activities to carry out

this update can include, but are not limited to, the hiring of additional staff, capital

investment, engaging contractors, and educating users on the new system.

15 USC 2208 section (b)(2), after ‘‘assist’’ insert ‘‘Federal,’’

Section 7. New Firefighting Technology

Re-designate sections (e), (f), and (g) of 15 USC 2207 as (f), (g), (h) respectively

and insert after section (d) a new section:

‘‘Wildland Urban Interface Assistance:

‘‘The Administrator is authorized to assist the Nation’s Fire Services directly or

through contracts, grants, or other forms of assistance, to sponsor and encourage research into approaches, techniques, systems, and equipment to improve

fire prevention and control in those urban areas that abut wildlands.’’

Section 8. Definitions

The term Administrator refers to the Fire Administrator who is the Assistant Administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

[The term Wildland-Urban Interface refers to:.]

[The term Hazardous Materials refers to:.]

11

Chairman WU. Good morning. I would like to welcome everybody

to this morning’s hearing on the United States Fire Administration. There are few issues more important than standing up for our

nation’s first responders. The Science and Technology Committee

has historically been one of the fire service community’s strongest

backers through our support for and oversight of the United States

Fire Administration. I am eager to hear today’s testimony from our

prestigious group of witnesses, who represent a broad group of

stakeholders in the fire service community.

USFA was formed by Congress in 1974 in response to America

Burning, a report by the President’s Commission on Fire Prevention and Control that found there were over 12,000 deaths due to

fire in this country and over 300,000 fire injuries every single year.

Through the hard work of USFA and others, we have fortunately

seen that number drop dramatically. We are now a much safer nation thanks to improved awareness of fire safety practices, increased use of smoke detectors and sprinklers, and other fire safety

measures. Still, however, over 3,000 people die each year in fires

and 10,000 more are injured. In addition, over 100 firefighters lose

their lives annually in the line of duty as we saw tragically this

past June in South Carolina.

Looking around the globe, though, our high numbers are an

anomaly in the industrialized world. In Europe, their fatality rate

per capita is 70 percent lower than ours. So truly we have more

work to do.

USFA supports local fire departments in a variety of manners.

They offer training and career development to thousands of midlevel firefighters, fire chiefs, and other emergency management officials. Through the National Fire Data Center, they collect and

manage data on the millions of fires and other emergencies that

fire departments respond to each year, data that can be used to

manage trends and set policy. USFA develops fire education and

awareness curriculum used across the country. They aim these

messages at groups who suffer the highest fire casualties such as

the young, the elderly, firefighters, as well as others.

In fact, my home state of Oregon was one of the first states to

begin reporting fire data to USFA and also one of the highest users

of USFA training programs.

Lastly, in partnership with the National Institute of Standards

and Technology, or NIST, the Department of Homeland Security’s

Science and Technology Directorate, other federal agencies, and

private organizations, USFA conducts and directs research on a variety of fire-related topics from technology—like thermal imaging

cameras and protective clothing to assist firefighters in the line of

duty—to studies of behaviors that cause fires.

As I am sure we will hear today, USFA’s programs are incredibly

important to the Nation’s fire service who must meet an increasing

number of challenges from preparing for terrorist attacks and catastrophic hurricanes to the everyday, but still scary, house fire.

Standards are also an essential part of the work of USFA and

its many partners.

Our witnesses today will no doubt discuss USFA’s role in the fire

safety standards development process as well as the important contributions of NIST. As many of you know, fire was the inspiration

12

for some of the original standards done by NIST. In 1904, a large

fire broke out in Baltimore. Fire companies from around the region

responded, but they found that they were unable to fit their hoses

onto the Baltimore hydrants because they were not built to standard sizes; and the fire burned for an additional 30 hours in spite

of the regional response. Following the fire, NIST, which was then

called the National Bureau of Standards, was asked by Congress

to work with NFPA to set a standard that would avert similar future tragedies. To me this story exemplifies the challenge in coordinating a truly local service performed by over 30,000 different fire

departments at the federal level.

These 30,000 different departments serve a variety of communities, from the largest to the smallest, and an overwhelming number of those who serve as firefighters do so on a volunteer basis.

One asset the Federal Government can offer these departments is

the U.S. Fire Administration.

As we look forward to reauthorizing the Fire Administration, I

am very interested to hear from our witnesses today, who I believe

represent a broad collection of views from the fire community, on

what USFA is doing right, and what they need to be doing to meet

the needs of the fire community more effectively.

[The prepared statement of Chairman Wu follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN DAVID WU

Good morning. I would like to welcome everybody to this morning’s hearing on

the United States Fire Administration.

There are few issues more important than standing up for our nation’s first responders.

The Science and Technology Committee has historically been one of the fire service community’s strongest backers through our support for and oversight of the U.S.

Fire Administration. I’m eager to hear today’s testimony from our prestigious group

of witnesses, who represent a broad group of stakeholders in the fire service community.

USFA was formed by Congress in 1974 in response to America Burning, a report

by the President’s Commission on Fire Prevention and Control that found there

were over 12,000 deaths due to fire in this country and over 300,000 fire injuries

each year. Through the hard work of USFA and others, we have fortunately seen

that number drop dramatically.

We are now a much safer nation, thanks to improved awareness of fire safety

practices like the increased use of smoke detectors and sprinklers, and other fire

safety measures. Still, however, over 3,000 people die each year in fires and 10,000

more are injured.

In addition, approximately 100 firefighters lose their lives annually in the line of

duty, as we saw tragically this past June in South Carolina. In looking around the

globe though, our high numbers are an anomaly in the industrialized world. In Europe, their fatality rate per capita is 70 percent lower than ours. So truly we have

a lot more work to do.

USFA supports local fire departments in a variety of manners. They offer training

and career development to thousands of mid-level firefighters, fire chiefs, and other

emergency management officials. Through the National Fire Data Center they collect and manage data on the millions of fires and other emergencies fire departments respond to each year—data that can then be used to manage trends and set

policy. USFA develops fire education and awareness curriculum material to be used

across the country. They aim these messages at groups who suffer the highest fire

casualties, such as the young, the elderly, and firefighters, as well as others.

And in fact, my home state of Oregon was one of the first states to begin reporting

fire data to USFA and also is one of the highest users of USFA training programs.

Lastly, in partnership with the National Institute for Standards and Technology

(NIST); the Department of Homeland Security’s Science and Technology Directorate;

other federal agencies; and private organizations, USFA conducts and directs research on a variety of fire related topics, from technology like thermal imaging camVerDate 11-MAY-2000 11:08 Jan 20, 2008 Jkt 037985 PO 00000 Frm 00016 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 C:\WORKD\T&I07\100207\37985 SCIENCE1 PsN: SCIENCE1
13

eras and protective clothing to assist firefighters in the line of duty, to studies of

behaviors that cause fires.

As I am sure we will hear today, USFA’s programs are incredibly important to

the Nation’s fire service who must meet an increasing number of challenges from

preparing for terrorist attacks and catastrophic hurricanes to the everyday, but still

scary, house fire.

Standards are also an essential part of the work of USFA and its many partners.

Our witnesses today will no doubt discuss USFA’s role in the fire safety standards

development process, as well as the important contributions of NIST.

As many of you know, fire was the inspiration for some of the original standards

work carried out by NIST. In 1904, a large fire broke out up in Baltimore. Fire companies from around the region responded, but found that they were unable to fit

their hoses onto the Baltimore hydrants because they were not built to standard

sizes, and the fire burned for an additional 30 hours in spite of the wide regional

response.

Following the fire, NIST, which was then called the National Bureau of Standards, was tasked by Congress to work with NFPA to set a standard that would avert

similar future tragedies. To me this story exemplifies the challenge in coordinating

a truly local service, performed by over 30,000 different fire departments, at the federal level.

These 30,000 different departments serve a variety of communities from the biggest to the smallest and an overwhelming number of those who serve as firefighters

do so on a volunteer basis. One asset the Federal Government can offer these departments is the U.S. Fire Administration.

As we look forward to reauthorizing the Fire Administration, I am very interested

to hear from our witnesses today, who I believe represent a broad collection of views

from the fire community on what USFA is doing right and what they need to be

doing to meet the needs of the fire community more effectively.

Chairman WU. And now for his opening statement, our Ranking

Member of the Subcommittee, Dr. Gingrey of Georgia.

Mr. GINGREY. Thank you, Chairman Wu, and good morning. And

I want to thank you for holding the hearing today that will begin

the process of reauthorizing the United States Fire Administration.

The stated mission of USFA is to reduce life and economic losses

due to fire and related emergencies through leadership, advocacy,

coordination, and support. This organization provides vital assistance in the areas of training, fire education, and awareness and

grants to a number of local fire departments across the country including my district, these very, very important grants. The testimony that our witnesses will provide this morning will help better

shape the future priorities of the USFA as we work on the agency’s

reauthorization, and certainly I look forward to hearing from them

on this important matter.

USFA’s training, education, and monitoring activities have made

a substantial impact over the last 30 years. Smoke alarms are now

standard issue to residences across the country. I wish they were

all wired instead of battery operated, but we continue to work on

that. Over one million firefighters have received advanced training

from USFA, and firefighter equipment and safety continually improves. However, while USFA should be proud of its record of

achievement, it is also clear that improvements still need to be

made. In the last ten years, deaths related to fires have decreased

by approximately 25 percent from nearly 5,000 in 1996 to 3,675 in

2006. Although that decrease in fire-related deaths is commendable, the United States still has one of the highest death rates from

fire in the industrialized world. It is hard to believe. Additionally,

despite decreases in the number of fires, direct damage costs are

increasing and have topped $10 billion per year. Put that another

14

way, in an average year, fire causes as much damage in the United

States as do hurricanes.

These statistics highlight the importance of the USFA, United

States Fire Administration, and why we are here today. USFA has

a substantial public safety mission whose magnitude is not often

recognized.

Therefore, as the Committee begins drafting legislation that will

provide a framework for USFA in the coming years, I look forward

to this panel of witnesses to sketch out where the needs are the

greatest, what programs have been successful to this date and

maybe where we currently may be a little bit off-course.

Before I finish, though, let me bring up one particular area of

concern for me. Several of our witnesses I think will discuss potentially updating the National Fire Incident Reporting System. I

think that’s referred to as NFIRS. I want to urge a little caution

and diligence in approaching the upgrade. IT projects like this one,

even on this committee and Chairman Gordon has a bill pertaining

to IT in regard to health information technology, electronic medical

records, but IT projects can rapidly fall apart potentially leaving

USFA with some very unhappy users and ballooning infrastructure

costs. So the USFA and the fire community, I think, need to be

very specific about the goals and limitations in creating a new system. Will web-based reporting bring in better quality data or provide tangible benefits over the current system? That is the big

question, and how will the upgraded system meet the needs of

local, State, and USFA personnel?

These are just a couple of questions that need to be addressed

as we begin the process of reauthorizing USFA, and I look forward

to hearing the testimony of all of our witnesses today. Mr. Chairman, thank you again for convening the hearing to address the future of USFA and I yield back.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Gingrey follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF REPRESENTATIVE PHIL GINGREY

Good morning Chairman Wu. I want to thank you for holding this hearing today

that will begin the process of reauthorizing the United States Fire Administration.

The stated mission of USFA is ‘‘reduce life and economic losses due to fire and related emergencies, through leadership, advocacy, coordination and support.’’ This organization provides vital assistance in the areas of training, fire education and

awareness and grants to a number of local fire departments across the country. The

testimony that our witnesses will provide this morning will help better shape the

future priorities of USFA as we work on the agency’s reauthorization, and I look

forward to hearing from them on this important matter.

USFA’s training, education, and monitoring activities have made a substantial impact over the last 30 years. Smoke alarms are now standard issue in residences

across the country; over a million firefighters have received advanced training from

USFA; and firefighter equipment and safety continually improves.

However, while USFA should be proud of its record of achievement, it’s also clear

that improvements still can be made. In the last ten years, deaths related to fires

have decreased by approximately 25 percent, from nearly 5,000 in 1996 to 3,675 in

2006. Although that decrease in fire-related deaths is commendable, the United

States still has one of the highest death rates from fire in the industrialized world.

Additionally, despite decreases in the numbers of fires, direct damage costs are increasing and have topped $10 billion per year. Put another way, in an average year,

fires cause as much damage in the United States as hurricanes.

These statistics highlight the importance of the United States Fire Administration

and why we are here today. USFA has a substantial public safety mission whose

magnitude is not often recognized.

15

Therefore, as the Committee begins drafting legislation that will provide a framework for USFA in the coming years, I look to this panel of witnesses to sketch out

where the needs are greatest, what programs have been successful to date, and

where we currently may be a bit off course.

Before I finish, let me also bring up one particular area of concern for me. Several

of our witnesses will discuss potentially updating the National Fire Incident Reporting System or NFIRS (en-firs). I would like to urge caution and diligence in approaching this upgrade. IT projects like this one can rapidly fall apart, potentially

leaving USFA with unhappy users and ballooning infrastructure costs. USFA and

the fire community need to be very specific about the goals and limitations of a new

system. Will web-based reporting bring in better quality data or provide tangible

benefits over the current system? How will the upgraded system meet the needs of

local, State, and USFA personnel?

These are just a couple of questions that need to be addressed as we begin the

process of reauthorizing USFA. I look forward to hearing the testimony of all of our

witnesses today. Mr. Chairman, thank you again for convening this hearing to address the future USFA. With that, I yield back.

Chairman WU. Thank you very much, Dr. Gingrey. At this point,

I would like to introduce our witnesses today. First, the United

States Fire Administrator, Gregory Cade of the USFA. Before taking this position, he was the Fire Chief and Emergency Services

Coordinator for the City of Virginia Beach. Dr. Shyam Sunder is

the Director of the Building and Fire Research Laboratory at the

National Institute of Standards and Technology. Chief Steven

Westermann is the President and Chief Fire officer for the International Association of Fire Chiefs and the Fire Chief of Central

Jackson County Fire Protection District in Missouri. An old friend,

Captain Robert Livingston is the Legislative Director of the Oregon

State Council of Fire Fighters of the International Association of

Fire Fighters and also a Captain in the Salem, Oregon, Fire Department. Chief Gordon Henderson I will let Dr. Gingrey introduce

in a moment, and Dr. John Hall is the Assistant Vice-President of

Fire Analysis and Research for the National Fire Protection Association. And I yield to Dr. Gingrey to further introduce Chief Henderson.

Mr. GINGREY. Mr. Chairman, I thank you very much for that

courtesy of allowing me to introduce Chief Gordon Henderson from

Ford County, Georgia, my district, the 11th District of Georgia in

Northwest Georgia, the greatest part of the state. Chief Henderson

has served in the fire service for 32 years. He spent the last 16 as

Deputy Chief of Operations for the Rome, Floyd County, Fire Department. Chief Henderson is also Past President of the Georgia

State Firefighters Association, and he currently serves as the

Chairperson of the Georgia Fire Service Legislative Committee.

That is an important one. He is appearing before us today on behalf of the National Volunteer Fire Council, and it is always nice

to welcome a fellow Georgian to testify before the Subcommittee.

Mr. Chairman, I know that you will be able to provide Chief Henderson with a unique and interesting perspective due to your years

of service and leadership experience, and I certainly thank you for

joining us today. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman WU. I reclaim my time. As all of the witnesses know,

your written testimony will be submitted in full, and your spoken

testimony, please try to limit it to five minutes after which the

Members of the Committee will have five minutes each to ask

questions; and if any other Members have opening statements to

submit, they will be submitted for the written record.

16

[The prepared statement of Mr. Matheson follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF REPRESENTATIVE JIM MATHESON

Chairman Wu and Ranking Member Gingrey, I thank you both for holding this

important hearing this morning regarding the U.S. Fire Administration (USFA).

The U.S. Fire Administration plays a critical role in protecting communities against

fire losses through its training, education, data collection and research activities.

Coming from Utah, I am particularly interested in hearing more about what the

USFA and other agencies are doing to address the challenges of fighting fire in the

Wildland-Urban Interface. In reading your testimony in preparation for this hearing, I was interested to learn about the rising costs and dangers associated with

firefighting in these rural areas.

I look forward to hearing from this distinguished panel of witnesses about the

USFA’s current priorities as well as their thoughts as to how we can best address

the challenges of firefighting in the Wildland-Urban Interface. Thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Mitchell follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF REPRESENTATIVE HARRY E. MITCHELL

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

The United States Fire Administration serves an important role in making sure

that our first responders have all the latest training and information available.

For the last 33 years, this agency has partnered with the National Institute of

Standards and Technology and others to set forward technology, curriculum, and

consumer education standards that have helped significantly decrease fire-related

deaths and injuries.

As you know, my district lies in the heart of Arizona’s arid, hot, Sonoran desert.

This climate attracts thousands of new residents and millions of visitors every

year, and it is our responsibility to keep them safe.

In my capacity on the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, I have

fought to provide Arizona with adequate resources to make sure this population

growth is met with adequate infrastructure improvement.

My district has 29 fire stations that employs 555 active volunteer and career firefighters.

These brave men and women protect 671,000 residents day and night, and contribute to keeping Arizona among the lowest rate of fire-related deaths in the Nation.

Unfortunately, the Fire Administration has not been able to keep up with maintaining an efficient fire incident database. This is due to bureaucratic red-tape and

aging database technology.

We owe it to our constituents and first responders to update this system and minimize bureaucratic barriers.

I am also concerned about protecting Wildland-Urban Interface areas.

With cities expanding into forests, deserts, and other fire-prone environments, it

is important that our firefighters are properly trained, equipped, and fully prepared

to deal with emerging threats.

I am looking forward to hearing from our panel on how we can achieve these

goals, and I yield back.

Chairman WU. At this point, we will begin our testimony with

Administrator Cade. Please proceed, Mr. Cade.

STATEMENT OF MR. GREGORY B. CADE, ASSISTANT ADMINISTRATOR, FEDERAL EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT AGENCY;

U.S. FIRE ADMINISTRATOR, UNITED STATES FIRE ADMINISTRATION, DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY

Mr. CADE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to say good

morning to both of you and all of the rest of the Members of the

Committee. It is a pleasure to be here this morning to speak on behalf of the United States Fire Administration and Secretary

Chertoff. I appreciate what the Committee is getting ready to do.

17

I think the reauthorization of the United States Fire Administration is something critically important.

As you pointed out in my biography, I have had the pleasure of

being in the fire service now for 40 years, and the things that are

done as part of the United States Fire Administration are extremely important. USFA is truly a leader in providing fire safety

and fire prevention programs. We don’t do it by ourselves, and sitting here today with me is a distinguished panel of other people

that we work with and partner with to get the things done that we

need to do.

There is nothing more important in my opinion than the education of the first responders in the first response community. Yes,

my experience has been the first responders truly are there when

things start, and they are there when everybody else goes home.

So making sure that they have the tools and the training and the

education to be able to do their job, I see as a very critical issue,

and I see the role of the United States Fire Administration as one

that can help not only provide some of the training directly to that

community but also, truly with our State partners and local partners, to be able to provide it out at the local level. It is impossible

for everyone to get up to the wonderful facility at the National

Emergency Training Center, even though we get about 9,000 people through there a year. There are 1.2 million firefighters here in

the United States that need that training. So clearly, we have to

partner with many of the organizations that sit here at this table

today to be able to get our job done.

I think that there is a critical need for the fire service to continue

to take the leading role in teaching how to provide incident command training that meets the National Incident Management System. There is no one in my opinion who uses the ICS system on

a daily basis more effectively than the fire service, and hopefully,

what we are going to be able to do with the United States Fire Administration is to help them to become a center of excellence in

their local communities and take the knowledge that they have and

provide that to everyone else.

I know that when you look at the other issues that are facing the

fire service, the critical issue that has come about certainly in the

last few years, but probably something we have been working on

for the last ten is this whole issue of the national wildland urban

interface and the problems that it is creating for the communities.

The USFA has been working very diligently with its partners, not

only in the U.S. Fire Service, but also in the Bureau of Land Management, to try and figure out how do we do a better job of preparing first responders at the structural firefighting level that are

continuing more and more to be engaged in doing wildland firefighting. So we are working with those and other partners.

It is important for me to be sitting here today the week before

the National Fire Prevention Week starts, and I am glad that you

chose today to conduct the hearing because next week we are going

to put an even greater focus, and hopefully get our whole country

to focus on, fire prevention and fire prevention activities, such as

changing the batteries in their smoke detectors; and I, too, wish

they were all wired together. It would certainly make a significant

difference.

18

I agree that the numbers of fire deaths and fire injuries here in

the United States is something that we continue to need to work

on and do a much better job with. Our commitment within the

United States Fire Administration is to look at using the data collection capabilities that we have to put the facts out there to help

guide the research that is being done with our partners and to look

at better ways to be able to safeguard not only the communities but

certainly safeguard the firefighters. Unfortunately, so far this year,

we are at 96 line-of-duty deaths. That really concerns me. I am

afraid before this year is out, we will be over 120. I have spoken

out about it numerous times, and I am going to continue to speak

about it. I think that there is a role that needs to be continued to

be pushed from the United States Fire Administration standpoint

in the use of residential sprinklers as a way of hopefully being able

to address the next level of injuries and deaths that are taking

place. I think that putting a greater emphasis on residential sprinkler systems will not only do a better job of suppressing the fires

but I think it will help to deal with the $10 billion a year loss and

even more importantly, with the loss of lives that we are seeing,

not only in the community but also with our firefighters.

So it is important, I think, to be able to do that, to look at how

do we collect that data. We are looking at trying to make some

modifications in our data collection capability and go to a webbased program. One of the dilemmas that we have right now is the

way the system is structured. In some cases, we are not getting the

data out of the states until 12 or 18 months. When I went through

my confirmation hearing, and I have said this before, some of the

questions that I had that I wanted data to be able to answer, I

couldn’t get 2006 statistics, which I thought was pretty amazing.

When you can go on the internet today and Google something and

find out tons of information, to me, a fire chief sitting at his or her

desk ought to have that same capability to look at using the data.

There is no one else in the world who has better fire statistics and

more of it than the United States Fire Administration and the National Fire Data Center. We have over 21,000 fire departments that

are continuing to provide information to us across this country. We

are looking at expanding it. We have a program right now where

we have been working not only with the Department of Defense

but also with our tribal partners to see about how we can do a better job of correlating the data for them and be able to use that.

We have a lot of relationships and you will hear that, I am sure,

from the other people that are going to speak after me about the

good things that are going on and the needs that we have across

the fire service.

With that, Mr. Chairman, I will be happy to answer whatever

questions that you have.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Cade follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF GREGORY B. CADE

Good morning, Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee. My name is Gregory B. Cade and I am an Assistant Administrator at the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the United States Fire Administrator in charge of the

United States Fire Administration (USFA) at the Department of Homeland Security

(DHS). I appreciate the opportunity to appear before you today on behalf of Secretary Chertoff.

19

Each year fires injure and kill more Americans than the combined losses from

floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, and other natural disasters. Death rates

from fires in the United States are among the highest in the industrialized world.

Part of the USFA’s mission is to reduce loss of life and property due to fire and related emergencies. This is not an easy task, but it is one the USFA takes on every

day, in coordination with other federal agencies, and in partnership with fire protection and emergency service communities. We take the mission of preparing the Nation’s fire service seriously and will continue to work tirelessly to reduce the loss

of life among the civilian population as well as among the Nation’s fire service.

As you are aware, USFA recently completed a transition to FEMA as part of the

Post Katrina Emergency Management Reform Act. As a part of ‘‘New FEMA,’’ the

staff will continue to work diligently to reduce deaths, injuries, and the damage to

property through leadership, advocacy, coordination and support in USFA’s long

standing four basic mission areas: training, public education and awareness, applied

research and technology, and data collection and analysis.

To accomplish our mission, we work with the fire service, other emergency responders, Federal, State, local and tribal governments, and allied professionals to

better prepare them to prevent, protect against, and respond to all incidents, including acts of terrorism. Being prepared for all types of incidents is by far the biggest

challenge in this day and age. With the threats today’s fire services face, preparing

them to respond to all incidents is essential. We will continue to provide educational

programs through the National Fire Academy (NFA) and provide educational materials to our partners at the State, local, and tribal level to help achieve higher levels

of preparedness.

We are interacting with State, local and tribal governments, the private sector,

and DHS’s Science and Technology Directorate to provide standardized, practical,

inter-operable equipment. We are helping first responders and emergency managers

practice and refine their response plans with partners at all levels of government.

Today, I will focus my remarks on USFA’s programs and services. Through these

programs we will improve the preparedness, effectiveness and safety of our first responders. I will also summarize our current activities and future needs.

USFA is a national leader in providing fire safety and prevention programs. We

also lead the way in preparing communities to deal with fires and other hazards.

USFA is supporting the efforts of local communities to reduce the number of fires

and fire deaths, and it champions federal fire protection issues and coordinates information about fire programs.

In terms of our preparedness programs, we recognize the importance of education

as a vital step toward a first responder community prepared to respond to any kind

of emergency, ranging from a small fire to a terrorist attack involving a large number of victims or extensive infrastructure damage. We continue to administer educational programs for community leaders and first responders to help them prepare

for and respond to emergencies regardless of cause or magnitude. USFA also strongly advocates for local fire departments to be the center of preparedness within their

jurisdictions. We believe these local departments should take the lead in preparing

their communities through public education and training other departments and

agencies on the concepts of the Incident Command System and the National Incident Management System. These fire departments should set the standard for the

rest of the community by ensuring their members all have family emergency plans

and at least 72 hours worth of supplies. The public looks to the fire department for

help once a disaster strikes, and we believe fire departments should set the example

of how to prepare before the disaster strikes.

USFA will continue to work with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

and their National Center for Injury Prevention and Control. Through this partnership we can share data and analyses to help both agencies better track civilian fire

injuries and deaths.

We are working closely with other divisions within FEMA, including the National

Preparedness Directorate (NPD). USFA has been collaborating with the NPD’s National Integration Center to coordinate training programs and to ensure NFA

courses are not in competition with or repetitive of NPD’s, the Emergency Management Institute’s or Center for Domestic Preparedness courses. USFA has also been

working closely with NPD to ensure all NFA courses are in line with the new National Preparedness Guidelines and touch on elements of the Universal Task List

and the Target Capabilities List.

Education and Preparedness Programs

NFA offers a wide variety of training and educational programs to promote the

professional development of command level fire officers, emergency managers, emerVerDate 11-MAY-2000 11:08 Jan 20, 2008 Jkt 037985 PO 00000 Frm 00023 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 C:\WORKD\T&I07\100207\37985 SCIENCE1 PsN: SCIENCE1
20

gency responders, technical staff, and allied professionals such as architects and engineers.

Students and their supervisors who have attended NFA courses have told us

Academy courses have improved their job performance and increased their professional development. An assessment conducted in FY 2006, revealed that 82 percent

of supervisors who responded reported an improvement in the student’s job performance following training. In addition, 93 percent reported that attending courses at

NFA contributed to the student’s professional development and almost 87 percent

reported that the training improved their department’s performance.

State and local support for fire service training must be increased and the federal

role is to foster this participation. USFA will continue to:

• Coordinate the exchange of training materials and information among State

and local fire training systems;

• Focus on distance learning and alternate training delivery methods such as

National Fire Academy Online (NFAOnline);

• Revise courses to include the most current information, public fire safety education and emergency response;

• Partner with associate and bachelor degree programs to align the national

academic fire curricula;

• Include multiple delivery formats in future course development so the nexus

of the course may be provided to the field in a variety of adaptable formats;

• Shorten some resident classes to offer more educational opportunities; and

• Provide faster turnaround to get newly learned skills applied in the field.

Distance learning strategies and strategic partnerships with State fire service

training organizations have helped us realize a continued increase in the number

of students the NFA trains each year. The most recent admissions statistics show

in FY 2007 8,278 students attended on-campus residential training courses and

76,918 students attended off-campus/distance learning training courses, which include classroom-based training at the State/local/tribal level as well as online distance learning. This represents a 13 percent increase over the previous fiscal year.

USFA’s NFA works in partnership with accredited State Fire Training Programs.

These State programs have over $700 million in capital facilities and trained over

750,000 firefighters last year.

For the past 10 years, we have partnered with colleges and universities across the

country to ensure important fire safety concepts are delivered to the Nation’s fire

service. Our training programs continue to focus on courses aligned with USFA’s

Operational Objectives. The NFA continues to develop and deliver training that cannot be obtained through other institutions. A curriculum review for the NFA curriculum is scheduled for FY 2008 and we expect to see those results by June 2008.

USFA is working with the National Incident Management System division within

FEMA and National Wildfire Coordinating Group to prepare regional All Hazard Incident Management Teams (AHIMT). These teams provide support for major incidents prior to, or in lieu of, the arrival of a Federal IMT. We are training these

teams on almost a weekly basis throughout the Nation. So far this year we have

helped establish 12 teams, coordinated 48 training sessions, and expect another nine

course offerings within the next six months.

Our National Fire Programs division has assumed additional preparedness roles

since our last reauthorization hearing. The division now has staff dedicated to:

• Work with the Department of Agriculture to provide expertise in structural

firefighting as part of the National Response Framework Emergency Support

Function 4;

• Support the Emergency Management and Response—Information Sharing

and Analysis Center (EMR–ISAC) for non-classified intelligence sharing with

America’s first responders; and

• Provide a presence at the DHS National Operations Center to keep first responders apprised of emerging threats and events.

Public Education and Awareness

USFA continues to deliver fire safety messages to those most vulnerable to fire—

the very young, the elderly, and others. USFA works closely with National fire service organizations to push the message of fire safety out to all at risk sectors of the

population. For example, this year USFA will once again partner with the National

Fire Protection Association for the National Fire Prevention Week, which is scheduled for October 7–13, 2007. We will continue to manage the Quick Response proVerDate 11-MAY-2000 11:08 Jan 20, 2008 Jkt 037985 PO 00000 Frm 00024 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 C:\WORKD\T&I07\100207\37985 SCIENCE1 PsN: SCIENCE1
21

gram where we blitz local media with proactive fire safety messages following fire

fatalities.

USFA works to identify and develop public, private, and fire community partnership opportunities to implement and enhance fire prevention and awareness activities. We do this by providing professional, managerial, and technical assistance to

State, local, and tribal fire service organizations and individuals.

We are working with our State and local partners, as well as industry representatives, to support residential fire sprinkler initiatives—a low-cost and reliable life

saving solution to one segment of America’s fire problem.

We have initiated a thriving program entitled Prevention Advocacy, Resources,

and Data Exchange (PARADE) that provides State and metropolitan fire officials a

venue for sharing their own successful fire prevention and protection strategies.

Data Collection

USFA continues to collect, analyze, publish, and distribute data to define and describe the national fire problem while assisting State, local, and tribal agencies in

developing standardized incident reporting methods for the collection and analysis

of local fire incident data.

USFA’s National Fire Data Center (NFDC) administers the National Fire Incident

Reporting System (NFIRS), which is used by over 21,000 fire departments to document incidents to which they respond. In addition, the NFDC manages the National

Fire Department Census, a voluntary online directory of almost 26,000 fire departments.

NFDC also tracks on-duty firefighter fatalities and has conducted an annual fatalities analysis for more than 20 years. Through the collection of information on

the causes of firefighter deaths, USFA is able to focus on specific problems and direct efforts toward finding solutions to reduce the number of firefighter fatalities in

the future. This information is also used to measure the effectiveness of current programs directed toward firefighter health and safety.

NFDC disseminates a wide range of technical, educational, and marketing information to the general public and fire services organizations through Internet and

print-based mediums.

Research and Technology

To maximize the impact of limited resources, USFA uses its national position to

serve as a focal point for developing cooperative relationships among the diverse organizations that have a shared interest in developing new technologies to address

fire safety and firefighting. USFA-supported fire research, almost without exception,

is accomplished through partnerships.

USFA is working closely with the DHS Science and Technology (S&T) Directorate

to identify areas of complementary research, inform S&T on research needs specific

to the fire community, and explore ways of combining resources for maximum impact.

USFA has long standing working relationships with a variety of federal agencies

including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, Consumer Product Safety Commission, Department

of Transportation, Department of Housing and Urban Development, Department of

Justice, Occupational Safety & Health Administration, and the National Institute

of Standards and Technology. In addition, there are partnerships with national-level

fire trade associations such as the National Volunteer Fire Council, the International Association of Fire Chiefs, the International Association of Fire Fighters,

International Code Council, and the National Fire Protection Association. USFA

also reaches out to academic institutions and non-fire service organizations to address topics of mutual interest. By sharing resources and expertise, the partners are

able to achieve much more together than they could achieve individually.

The data and information derived from these partnership research efforts have influenced the decisions of consensus standards-making committees on a number of

topics such as thermal imaging cameras, firefighting protective clothing, chemical

protective clothing, protective clothing for urban search and rescue, self-contained

breathing apparatus, and residential sprinkler systems.

USFA also leverages research partnerships and technology developments to improve fire prevention and promote public safety. Currently, USFA is working with

others in the fire sprinkler community to promote installation of residential fire

sprinklers. Residential sprinklers can substantially reduce the impact of residential

fire incidents, injuries, and fatalities. The National Fire Protection Association reports that when sprinklers are present the chances of dying in a fire are reduced

by about two-thirds, regardless of whether smoke alarms were present or not. If

sprinklers are introduced before smoke alarms, the death rate would fall about 69

22

percent; if smoke alarms are introduced first, the death rate would be expected to

fall by one-half; sprinklers would reduce the remaining fatality rate by 63 percent.

Together with smoke alarms, sprinklers cut the risk of dying in a home fire by 82

percent, relative to having neither, and there is a potential for a dramatic decrease

in the over 2,500 residential fire deaths which occur each year in America. Average

property loss per residential fire is about one-half less when compared to fires where

sprinklers are not present. In addition, as more than 25 percent of firefighter onduty deaths are associated with residential fires, a long-term benefit of residential

sprinklers is firefighter injuries and deaths will also be reduced. Simply put—we

will have fewer firefighters killed on-duty if we have fewer firefighters responding

to major fires that could have been extinguished or contained by a residential sprinkler system.

Since FY 2005, 15 Firefighter Research and Development grants have been

awarded through the Assistance to Firefighters Grants (AFG) program. These

grants have totaled nearly $17 million and were granted to 19 different organizations. While USFA does not operate the AFG program, it does work closely with the

AFG program office within FEMA to ensure the fire service is represented.

Since FY 2005, 15 Firefighter Research and Development grants have been

awarded through the Assistance to Firefighters Grants (AFG) program. These

grants have totaled nearly $17 million and were granted to 19 different organizations. While USFA does not operate the AFG program, it does work closely with the

AFG program office within FEMA to ensure the fire service is represented.

This collaboration also includes working with the AFG program office on the Fire

Prevention and Safety Grants (FP&S) and Staffing for Adequate Fire and Emergency Response (SAFER) Grant. The FP&S grants support projects that enhance

the safety of the public and firefighters from fire and related hazards. The primary

goal of the FP&S is to target high-risk populations and mitigate high incidences of

death and injury. USFA’s work with the SAFER Grants ensures funding goes directly to fire departments in order to help increase the number of trained, firefighters available across the country.

PREPnet

The Preparedness Network (PREPnet) is a satellite-based distance learning system used by USFA to bring interactive training programs into virtually any community nationwide. With a wide variety of programs for the public safety community,

there’s something for everyone. All programming is open and in the public domain,

so any community with access to a C-band or Ku-band analog satellite dish or a

community cable vision provider can receive broadcasts and participate in the training programs.

On Wednesday, September 19th, USFA’s PREPnet supported the roll-out of the

National Response Framework (NRF) from the PREPnet studios in Emmitsburg,

MD. This broadcast, which was simultaneously a TV broadcast via the Dish Network, a Video Teleconference over FEMA’s internal VTC system, and a web cast

available on the Internet to any interested parties, featured NPD Deputy Administrator Dennis Schrader and Al Fluman, Acting Director of FEMA’s Incident Management Systems Division (IMSD), who presented an overview of the NRF and answered a series of questions received from actual viewers during the broadcast.

PREPnet also recently hosted a Virtual Town Hall on School Preparedness as a

part of National Preparedness Month. A panel of experts from the Department of

Education’s Office of Safe and Drug-Free Schools and FEMA’s NPD discussed grant

opportunities and planning, training, and other preparedness tools available to

school districts nationwide.

Challenges

Reducing the loss of life and property caused by fire remains a significant challenge. Each year, fire kills more than 3,000 people and injures more than 16,000.

Annual property losses due to fire are estimated at more than $11 billion. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention tells us fire and burn injuries represent one

percent of the incidence of reported injuries and two percent of the total costs of

injuries, or $7.5 billion each year. Unfortunately, our nation’s firefighters continue

to also pay a large price in keeping fire deaths and property losses down. As of September 21, 2007, 93 firefighters have been killed while on duty this calendar year.

Although the numbers are still too high as most of these deaths can be prevented,

great progress is being made to reduce the toll from fires. Since 1974, when Congress passed the Federal Fire Prevention and Control Act (Pub. L. No. 93–498), and

established the United States Fire Administration and its National Fire Academy,

USFA has helped to reduce fire deaths significantly. Over the last 10 years, fires

23

have declined by 13 percent. During this same period, a 12 percent decline in civilian deaths and a 31 percent drop in civilian injuries were also reported.

New programs need to be developed which will prepare responders to deal with

the Wildland/Urban Interface. This involves the issue of urban sprawl and how to

reduce fire risk for the population. Population decentralization in the U.S. has resulted in rapid development in the outlying fringe of metropolitan areas and in

rural areas as people want to move out of the city centers.

We need to enhance our emphasis on preparing the Nation’s first responders for

all hazards, including natural, technological and terrorist incidents. We will accomplish this through education and information sharing with our partner organizations

and agencies.

The USFA will continue to work with the United States Department of Justice’s

(DOJ), Public Safety Officer Benefits (PSOB) program as it relates to death benefits

for first responders who are killed in the line of duty. Unfortunately, there are an

overwhelming number of families of firefighters who have been killed in the line of

duty who have yet to receive any death benefits. We look forward to working with

DOJ on relieving this deadlock and getting benefits to those families who qualify.

Conclusion

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for giving me this opportunity to appear before you

today. Your continued support is greatly appreciated. I will be glad to answer any

questions you and other Members of the Committee may have.

BIOGRAPHY FOR GREGORY B. CADE

Gregory B. Cade is the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) Assistant Administrator (Fire Administrator) for the U.S. Fire Administration (USFA).

Appointed in May 2007, Assistant Administrator Cade is responsible for supporting

State and local fire service programs as well as implementing FEMA Administrator

R. David Paulison’s initiatives for emergency readiness, firefighter training, and

equipment.

Before accepting this post, Assistant Administrator Cade was the Fire Chief/

Emergency Services Coordinator of the City of Virginia Beach (VA) Fire Department. From 1998–2007, he managed 900 personnel with a $38 million operating

budget. He also oversaw the Virginia Task Force 2 Urban Search and Rescue Team

and operated 19 fire/rescue stations covering 311 square miles of land and 35 miles

of Atlantic and Chesapeake coastline out to the international line.

Assistant Administrator Cade has 39 years of fire and rescue services experience.

He began his career in Prince George’s County Maryland as an entry-level firefighter. He served as a risk manager, budget analyst, and training instructor, rising

through the ranks to his last assignment as the Bureau Chief, Division of Fire/Rescue before leaving and becoming Fire Chief of the City of Hampton (VA) in 1992.

His emergency management experience includes activities related to preparing for,

responding to, and recovering from several Presidentially-declared man-made and

natural disasters.

Assistant Administrator Cade earned a Bachelor of Science from the University

of Maryland and completed the Program for Senior Executives in State and Local

Government at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government. He received the Victoria J. Adams Award for Excellence in Equal Employment Opportunity/Affirmative Action from the Virginia Department of Fire Programs in 1997

and holds positions in several professional associations. Assistant Administrator is

also past Vice President of the National Society of Executive Fire Officers.

Chairman WU. Thank you. We will do questions all together at

the end of all the witness testimony. Next, Dr. Sunder, please proceed.

STATEMENT OF DR. SIVARAJ SHYAM SUNDER, DIRECTOR,

BUILDING AND FIRE RESEARCH LABORATORY, NATIONAL

INSTITUTE OF STANDARDS AND TECHNOLOGY, DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE

Dr. SUNDER. Thank you Chairman Wu, and Dr. Gingrey and

Members of the Subcommittee. NIST fire research is focused on reducing losses and risk by advancing innovative fire protection technologies and increasing the safety of buildings that are threatened

24

by fire, and we do that by improving building and fire codes, standards, and practices. Our work is aimed at filling research gaps in

areas such as how the fire-related characteristics of modern furnishings, building materials, and designs affect the time available

for safely exiting buildings, particularly in high-rise buildings and

for impaired populations, including those in hospitals, nursing

homes, residences or other facilities.

Our research also provides the science, performance measures,

and tools critical to developing and implementing new and emerging technologies that would improve the effectiveness and safety of

firefighters. They go beyond developing tools and methods by actually getting our results into the hands of firefighters, incident commanders, and other emergency responders.

In addition, NIST is working on science-based approaches for

limiting fire growth and spread, particularly in residential settings,

where the vast majority of fire deaths occur, by reducing the flammability of the materials and products within our homes, by reliably detecting a fire in its nascent state, and by automatically suppressing fires once they develop.

As part of the President’s American Competitiveness Initiative,

or ACI, we are developing tools for reducing community losses from

fires at the wildland-urban interface. These tools will assist communities all across the U.S. in assessing their risk for such fires

and choosing economically-balanced mitigation strategies. Also as

part of the ACI, NIST has begun examining fire safety issues associated with the emerging use of hydrogen as a fuel in transportation and in domestic and commercial power generation.

NIST will provide the scientific and technical information to support the development of codes and standards for the design of engineered containment and transport systems and for mitigating potential fire and explosion hazards in both the residential and commercial sectors.

Finally, NIST’s Fire Research Grant Program has been the primary federal source for fire research at universities for the past 30

years and a source for training in the next generation of fire protection engineers and researchers.

Our fire research priorities are determined in a deliberate and

inclusive fashion. We work with a broad range of industries, codes

and standards, developing organizations, fire service organizations,

professional societies, public safety groups, universities and other

government agencies. We identify the needs of these customers and

the capabilities of our research collaborators, both here and abroad,

through workshops, direct contact, technical meetings, roadmaps,

and established national priorities. Our Fire Research Program

evolves from these needs after considering the potential impact and

probability of success that fit to our mission, match of the technical

challenges to the staff capabilities, and the potential for leveraging

the investment. There are many examples of how our research program is coordinated with the U.S. Fire Administration. We regularly hold joint workshops with USFA that includes representatives

from the fire service industry and other laboratories to establish

priorities for fire service research. The results of these workshops

have helped set the current research agenda for both NIST and

USFA. Our research plans are coordinated through an established

25

liaison arrangement where in fact a NIST employee spends about

a day a week at USFA. Together, we jointly fund high priority research topics, transfer research results to the fire service, and conduct investigations of firefighter fatalities. Recent research projects

include characterizing the performance of personal protective

equipment, developing structural collapse prediction technology,

and assembling the components of virtual firefighter training for

next generation firefighting.

We are also working together to analyze the recent Charleston

furniture store fire that resulted in nine firefighter fatalities. Our

research results are transferred to the fire service, we have training courses at the National Fire Academy, and we produce an electronic newsletter for fire service personnel called Fire.Gov, an electronic publication distributed directly to fire departments and

training academies. Our research has been used to develop entire

courses or has been integrated into course modules at the fire academy. We also continue to work closely with standards development

organizations. Our research has provided the technical basis for

new NFPA standard for the Personal Alert Safety System, or PASS

device, that is used by firefighters. In a similar fashion, our research has provided the technical basis for the development of new

NFPA standards for the effective use of thermal imagers for tracking fire spread and locating fallen firefighters and building occupants.

In summary, we are proud of our role as a partner in science and

technology resource for USFA helping to play a significant role in

the development of science-based consensus standards and reliable,

safe, and effective firefighting equipment and techniques in the

United States. Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Dr. Sunder follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF SIVARAJ SHYAM SUNDER

Chairman Wu, Dr. Gingrey, and Members of the Subcommittee, I appreciate the

opportunity to appear before you today to discuss the fire research program at the

National Institute of Standards and Technology’s (NIST) Building and Fire Research Lab (BFRL). NIST conducts research to promote U.S. innovation and industrial competitiveness by advancing measurement science, standards, and technology

in ways that enhance economic security and improve our quality of life. BFRL supports this mission by anticipating and meeting these needs for the U.S. building and

fire safety industries. In relation to fire research, NIST was given specific authority

under the Federal Fire Prevention and Control Act of 1974 as amended (15 U.S.C.

278f(a) ) for ‘‘performing and supporting research on all aspects of fire with the aim

of providing scientific and technical knowledge applicable to the prevention and control of fires.’’

Fire remains a serious problem for our country as evidenced by the continuing

high rates of fire deaths in the U.S. Each year, more than 3000 people die in fires

and per capita fire deaths are 70 percent higher in the U.S. than in the European

Union. Fire codes that are overly prescriptive—that is, detailed and restrictive—can

increase the cost of construction and major renovations and possibly stifle innovative new approaches without actually improving the fire safety of the building and

its occupants. There is much that we do not know about how the fire-related characteristics of modern furnishings, building materials, and designs affect the time

available for safely exiting buildings. This is an issue of particular concern in high

rise office buildings and for impaired populations, including those in hospitals, nursing homes, residences, or other facilities. Manmade fire threats—whether they are

accidental, intentional, or due to new higher risk technologies—increase the need

for strategies to prevent or limit the flammability of materials and structures or to

improve the ability of occupants to exit or survive in buildings where fires take

place.

26

1http://csfs.colostate.edu/library/pdfs/fire/statistics/fire¥history.pdf 2http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d05380.pdf

3 Ibid.

NIST fire research is focused on reducing losses and risk by advancing innovative

fire protection technologies and increasing the safety of buildings threatened by fire.

This research has been highlighted as a critical need in a National Academies study

(Making the Nation Safe from Fire, a Path Forward in Research, National Academies Press, 2003).

In addition to improving fire safety in buildings, NIST research provides the

science and performance measures that are critical for developing and implementing

the new technologies necessary to improve the effectiveness and safety of emergency

responders. This includes developing science-based standards and testing protocols,

firefighter training tools, and innovative new technologies. We go beyond developing

new tools and methods—NIST gets its research results into the hands of firefighters, incident commanders, and other emergency responders. Over the last few

years, NIST research has been used to develop entire courses or has been integrated

into modules for use in courses at the United States Fire Administration’s (USFA)

National Fire Academy (NFA), including the courses Introduction to Fire Dynamics

and Fire Modeling, Management of Fire Prevention Programs, and Evaluating Performance Based Designs, as well as several courses in the NFA’s Degrees at a Distance Program.

NIST is developing strategies for cost-effectively reducing the Nation’s fire losses,

both human and financial, based on approaches for limiting fire growth and spread.

The vast majority of fire deaths occur in residential settings. The key to reducing

fire deaths lies in reducing the chance for a fire to reach ‘‘flashover,’’ a condition

in which the entire contents of a room begin to burn simultaneously and produce

the toxic smoke and hot gases that can kill people at remote locations within a

building. Flashover can be controlled by: 1) reducing the flammability of the materials and products within our homes, 2) reliably detecting a fire in its nascent state,

and 3) automatic suppression systems. NIST researchers have been pursuing—and

succeeding—in all three avenues for reducing the likelihood of flashover.

NIST research supports improvements to building and fire codes, standards, and

practices that reduce the impact of extreme threats to the safety of buildings, their

occupants and emergency responders. As part of the President’s American Competitiveness Initiative (ACI), NIST is developing tools for reducing community losses in

wildland-urban interface fires. The U.S. faces extreme losses of life and property due

to wildland-urban fire. Since 1990 in Colorado, over 450,000 acres, 484 homes and

25 lives were lost to wildland-urban fires.1 In 2003 alone in California, fires cost

an estimated $2 billion in insured damages and destroyed more than 3,600 homes.2

During 2000–2003, the cost to federal agencies fighting wildland fires averaged $1.3

billion annually (in 2004 dollars).3 The NIST tools will assist communities all across

the U.S. in their fire risk assessment and choices of economically-balanced mitigation strategies that limit the ignition of residences and improve firefighter and community safety.

Issues associated with the emerging use of hydrogen as a fuel in transportation

and domestic/commercial power generation are also being examined by NIST as part

of the ACI. NIST is working to remove technical barriers that impede the implementation of a hydrogen economy, and to provide the scientific and technical information, needed to support the development of codes and standards for the design of

engineered containment and transport systems, and provisions for the mitigation of

potential fire and explosion hazards in both the residential and commercial sectors.

NIST Fire Grants Program

For the past 30 years, NIST has been supporting university research through its

fire grants program—currently funded at $1.3 million per year. NIST relies on the

special expertise of the academic community to assist in surmounting the complex

physical, sociological, and economic barriers to significantly reducing U.S. fire

losses. This program has been the primary federal source for fire research in universities and a source for training the next generation of fire protection engineers and

researchers.

Fire Research Agenda Strategic Approach

NIST research priorities are determined in a deliberate and inclusive fashion. We

work with a broad range of industries (e.g., building materials and contents manufacturers, fire protection equipment suppliers), codes and standards developing organizations (e.g., International Code Council (ICC), National Fire Protection Association (NFPA), American Society for Testing and Materials International (ASTMI),

27

Underwriters Laboratories (UL), FM Approvals (a business unit of FM Global for

commercial property and building insurance), fire service organizations (e.g., International Association of Fire Chiefs (IAFC), International Association of Fire Fighters (IAFF), National Association of State Fire Marshals (NASFM), International Association of Arson Investigators (IAAI), Conference of Fire Safety Instructors (CFSI),

National Fallen Firefighters Foundation (NFFF) ), professional societies (e.g., Society

of Fire Protection Engineers (SFPE), American Society of Mechanical Engineers

(ASME), American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) ), public safety groups (e.g.,

Skyscraper Safety Campaign, Operation Life Safety, Home Safety Council, Center

for Campus Fire Safety), universities, and other government agencies—including

USFA, Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), Department of Homeland Security (DHS), U.S. Forest Service (USFS), Department of Transportation (DOT), Department of Defense (DOD), National Aeronautics and Space Administration

(NASA), National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), and the

Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF).

NIST identifies the needs of these customers and the capabilities of our collaborators (national and international) through workshops, direct contact at technical

meetings, roadmaps, and established national priorities. The NIST fire research program evolves from these needs after considering the potential impact and probability of success, the fit to the NIST mission, the match of the technical challenge

to staff capabilities, and the potential for leveraging the investment.

The Federal Fire Prevention and Control Act of 1974 as amended (15 U.S.C.

278f(a) ) specifically stipulates that ‘‘the content and priorities of the [NIST] research program shall be determined in consultation with the Administrator of the

United States Fire Administration.’’ There are many examples of how the NIST research program is coordinated with the USFA.

NIST regularly hosts joint workshops with USFA that include representatives

from the fire service, industry, and other laboratories to establish priorities for fire

service research. Specific examples include the National Fire Service Research Agenda Symposium hosted jointly with USFA in Emmitsburg, MD; the National Fire

Fighter Life Safety Summit hosted by USFA; and workshops hosted by the National

Fallen Fighters Foundation in Tampa, FL; Indianapolis, IN; San Diego, CA; and

Washington, DC. The results of these workshops have helped set the current research agenda for both NIST and USFA. Other federal programs, such as the DHS

Assistance to Firefighter Grants, are incorporating these prioritized research areas

as part of their proposal evaluation criteria. Similar workshops are being considered

to establish priorities and timelines for the development of measurements, test

methods, and consensus standards.

NIST’s and USFA’s research plans are coordinated through an established liaison

arrangement. Together, NIST and USFA jointly fund high-priority research topics,

transfer research results to the fire service, and conduct investigations of firefighter

fatalities. Recent research projects include characterizing the performance of personal protective equipment, developing structural collapse prediction technology,

and assembling the components of a virtual firefighter trainer for next generation

firefighting. The research results are transferred to the fire service via incorporation

into training courses at the National Fire Academy, an electronic newsletter for fire

service personnel (FIRE.Gov), and electronic publications distributed directly to fire

departments and training academies. A USFA employee participated as a member

of the team formed and led by NIST under the National Construction Safety Team

Act to perform a building and fire safety investigation of the Rhode Island Station

Nightclub fire in 2003. Currently, USFA and NIST are working together to analyze

the Charleston furniture store fire that resulted in nine firefighter fatalities. The

objectives of this study are to understand the unusual and rapid fire spread, the

impact of smoke and gases on human life, the effect of ventilation on fire growth

and roof collapse, and the possible influence of a sprinkler system had one been installed. In addition, the study is considering fire service response and operations

with a focus on establishing a timeline for reconstructing the fire, and to identify

areas in building and fire codes, standards, and practices that warrant revision. The

recommendations from these kinds of investigations are communicated to the fire

service and national voluntary consensus standards organizations to improve the

safety of first responders and the public.

NIST continues to work closely with standards organizations to support the development of consensus standards. NIST provides an unbiased source of technical information and data, which is critical to the success of standards development. Recent NIST research has characterized the performance of personal alert safety systems (PASS), demonstrating that serious flaws can cause the alarm signal generator

to failed at high temperatures—precisely when this safety equipment is most needed. Based on data collected at NIST, a joint safety warning was issued nationwide

28

by USFA, NIST, NIOSH, NFPA, IAFC, and IAFF. NIST research has provided the

technical basis for rewriting the test standards for the PASS device, increasing the

likelihood that the device will work under the extreme conditions typical of a fire

environment.

In a similar fashion, NIST research funded internally and by USFA and DHS has

led to the development of a complete suite of performance metrics and standard test

protocols for thermal imagers for first responder applications. During the last five

years, thermal imaging cameras have become more readily available to fire departments for tracking fire spread and locating fallen firefighters or building occupants.

Previously, there were no performance metrics or standard test protocols for firefighter thermal imagers. The NIST research has provided the technical basis for the

development of a new NFPA standard for thermal imagers. With this standard in

place, the performance of this critical piece of technology can be evaluated to ensure

that thermal imagers are as effective as possible.

Each year, a significant number of firefighter fatalities are due to structural collapse. USFA- and NIST-funded research has identified a promising new technology

to continuously monitor the structural integrity of buildings experiencing fire. This

emerging technology, when fully developed, could provide incident commanders with

early warning of an impending collapse, allowing first responders more time to safely evacuate from the interior of structures before collapse occurs.

Positive pressure ventilation fans are available to many fire departments and

could provide cooler and smoke-free stairwells for firefighter operations or occupant

egress. Unfortunately, in the past, this ventilation technology has been under-utilized due to lack of scientific data on the interaction between ventilation and fire

growth. A current USFA and NIST collaborative effort has characterized the fan/

building interaction in single story residential structures, high rise apartment/office

structures, and warehouse type structures. NIST research provides a science-based

set of guidelines for the deployment and operation of positive pressure ventilation

fans to improve the effectiveness of firefighting activities and evacuation of building

occupants.

As the Nation’s primary measurement laboratory, NIST is proud of its roles as

a partner and science and technology resource for USFA, helping to play a significant role in the development of science-based consensus standards and reliable, safe,

and effective firefighting equipment and techniques.

I am delighted to have had the opportunity to describe the fire research program

at NIST. The problems we tackle affect people every day, and the technical challenges require the resources and expertise of institutions like NIST, working together with the USFA and other organizations to improve fire safety and the effectiveness of firefighting in America.

Thank you and I would be happy to answer any of your questions.

BIOGRAPHY FOR SIVARAJ SHYAM SUNDER

Dr. Shyam Sunder is Director of the Building and Fire Research Laboratory

(BFRL) at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).

BFRL has an annual operating budget of about $42 million and its staff includes

about 175 federal employees and 100 research associates and guest researchers from

industry, universities, and foreign laboratories.

Dr. Sunder also:

• is the lead investigator for the federal building and fire safety investigation

of the World Trade Center disaster;

• oversees NIST activities as lead agency for the National Earthquake Hazards

Reduction Program (NEHRP); and

• co-chairs the National Science and Technology Council’s (NSTC) Subcommittee on Buildings Technology (SBT) Research and Development.

From June 1996 to December 1997, Dr. Sunder was on assignment to the Program Office, the principal staff office of the NIST Director, first as a Program Analyst and later as the Senior Program Analyst for NIST.

Dr. Sunder was appointed Chief of the Structures Division in January 1998 and

Chief of the Materials and Construction Research Division in June 2002. He was

appointed Acting Deputy Director of BFRL in March 2004, Deputy Director of BFRL

in June 2005, and Acting Director of BFRL in July 2006.

Prior to joining NIST in 1994, Dr. Sunder held a succession of positions at the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) beginning in 1980: Instructor, Assistant Professor, Associate Professor, principal research scientist, and senior research

scientist.

29

Dr. Sunder holds a Bachelor of Technology (Honors) degree in civil engineering

from the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi (1977), a Master of Science degree

in civil engineering from MIT (1979), and a Doctor of Science degree in structural

engineering from MIT (1981).

Dr. Sunder’s awards include the Gilbert W. Winslow Career Development Chair

(1985–87) and the Doherty Professorship in Ocean Utilization (1987–89) from MIT,

the Walter L. Huber Civil Engineering Research Prize (1991) from the American Society of Civil Engineers, the Equal Employment Opportunity Award (1997) from

NIST, and the Gold Medal Award (2005) for his distinguished leadership of the federal building and fire safety investigation of the World Trade Center disaster from

the U.S. Department of Commerce.

Chairman WU. Thank you, Dr. Sunder. Chief Westermann?

STATEMENT OF MR. STEVEN P. WESTERMANN, PRESIDENT

AND CHIEF FIRE OFFICER, INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION

OF FIRE CHIEFS

Mr. WESTERMANN. Good morning, Chairman Wu, Ranking Member Gingrey, and Members of the Committee. As chief of the Central Jackson County Fire District in Missouri and President of the

nearly 13,000 members of the International Association of Fire

Chiefs, it is a true honor to be here as we begin the process of reauthorization and to discuss the USFA and the priorities of the Nation’s fire service.

The USFA plays a major role in preparing the fire service for all

hazards. The mission of the USFA is to reduce life and economic

loss to fire and related emergencies through leadership, coordination, and support. The major focus of the USFA’s activities is the

National Fire Academy. In fiscal year 2007, the NFA trained over

8,000 fire and emergency service officers on campus and over

76,000 off-campus and distance-learning to respond to regional and

national incidents involving all hazards. The USFA also plays important roles in educating the public about fire safety and prevention, collecting, analyzing, and disseminating fire information and

partnering with the public and private sector to conduct research

on new fire-related technologies. In fiscal year 2007, Congress appropriated $46.8 million for the

USFA, an increase of $2.3 million above fiscal year 2006 level. Both

the House and Senate have passed appropriation bills containing

$43.3 million for the USFA in fiscal year 2008. Congress authorized

$68.8 million for the USFA in fiscal year 2008. We urge the Committee to reauthorize the USFA in ’09 as $70 million with a fiveyear authorization to ensure long-term funding stability for the

Agency.

The National Fire Incident Reporting System, known as NFIRS,

is an essential tool for America’s fire service. The NFIRS is the

world’s largest, national, annual database for fire and emergency

incident information. Over 21,000 fire departments report to the

NFIRS each year. These departments report an average of 14 million incidents and one million fires each year. The NFIRS is designed to receive data pertaining to all incidents in order to cover

the full-range of fire department activities.

Unfortunately, the NFIRS is not being utilized to its fullest potential. The current format requires fire departments to submit

data on paper or as computer files to the states, which then periodically upload the data to the USFA. Under the current system,

there can be a delay of 12 and 18 months in compiling national

30

data. In addition, NFIRS only includes about half of the reported

fires that occur annually, and this simply is not acceptable. Therefore, the IAFC would like Congress to authorize $3 million over

three years for the USFA to enhance the NFIRS data collection

system and transform it into a real-time web reporting tool. While

we do not expect overnight fire data analysis, the collection of

more, timelier data may help to reduce the current 12- to 18-month

delay and may make it easier to distinguish major trends. For example, earlier this year, a number of fires caused multiple fatalities in New York and the Midwest. Without timely data from

NFIRS, it was difficult to ascertain whether these deaths were a

record number, a growing trend, or simply an anomaly receiving

heightened media attention.

The Senate appropriated $1 million to modernize the NFIRS in

H.R. 2638, the fiscal year 2008 Department of Homeland Security

Appropriations bill. We hope that Congress will pass this appropriation and authorize the USFA reauthorization bill.

USFA brings the perspective of the front-line firefighter to policy

discussions. As the DHS develops federal policies such as National

Response Framework, USFA should continue to be involved to ensure that these policies are practicable for the local first responders

during an emergency, terrorist attack, or disaster.

The ISC urges the Committee to support the USFA’s current seat

at the National Operations Center. Operating 24 hours a day, 365

days a year, the NOC serves as the Nation’s nerve center for information sharing in domestic incident management. The USFA can

play a critical role in the NOC by obtaining information from fire

departments around the country for fusion with other potential

threat information. In addition, the USFA can relay on information

of a possible threat to a local fire department. For example, if there

was a threat of a chlorine bomb in the Kansas City area, the NOC

would inform me of that threat so that the hazmat teams in the

Kansas City area would be on heightened alert status.

The ISC also supports the USFA’s current plan to educate the

public about the lifesaving benefits of residential fire sprinklers.

Currently, only about two percent of American homes have fire

sprinklers. However, fire sprinklers can play a major role in saving

lives and preventing property damage. According to the National

Fire Protection Association, when sprinklers are present in structures, the fire death rate per 1,000 reported structure fires is lower

by at least 57 percent and the rate of property damage per reported

structure fire is lower by one-third to two-thirds. The installation

of more fire sprinklers in homes should reduce both civilian and

firefighter deaths as well as reduce property damage.

A growing challenge for the fire service is the growth of the

wildland-urban interface. As residential growth expands into traditionally rural areas, there is an increase in the amount of property

damage that has occurred from fires. The annual estimated costs

for combating wildland fires exceeds $500 million for local governments and $2 billion for State and federal agencies, a large portion

of which is in the wildland interface. Insurance companies spend

over $250 million per year covering the damage caused by interface

fires.

31

Many fire departments, especially those not in the West, are just

beginning to recognize the challenges of fighting fires in the WUI.

By working more closely with the U.S. Department of Agriculture

and U.S. Department of Interior, the USFA can become a leading

agency in educating the traditionally structural fire departments

about how to safely and effectively respond to fires in the interface

and help educate the public about fire prevention and mitigation

in the interface.

I know I am out of time, but there is one more critical area that

we do need to discuss, and that is EMS. EMS is an important part

of the U.S. fire service. According to the USFA’s ‘‘Four Years

Later—A Second Needs Assessment,’’ 67 percent of the responding

fire departments provide EMS. And of all the major metropolitan

areas, 100 percent of those departments provide EMS. USFA

should educate the DHS leadership, other federal agencies, and the

public about the role of the fire-based EMS in their areas.

And with that, we thank you again for the opportunity to address

the Committee, and on behalf of America’s fire and EMS chiefs, we

look forward to working with you and the reauthorization of the

USFA.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Westermann follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF STEVEN P. WESTERMANN

Good morning, Chairman Wu, Ranking Member Gingrey, and Members of the

Committee. I am Chief Steven P. Westermann, CFO, of the Central Jackson County,

Missouri, Fire Protection District and President of the nearly 13,000 members of the

International Association of Fire Chiefs. The IAFC represents the leadership of

America’s fire, rescue, and emergency medical services (EMS) from large, metropolitan, career fire departments to small, rural, volunteer fire departments. Today, I

would like to thank the Committee for the opportunity to discuss the U.S. Fire Administration (USFA) and the priorities of the Nation’s fire service.

The Fire and Emergency Service Community

America’s fire and emergency services are the only organized group of American

citizens that is locally situated, staffed, trained, and equipped to respond to all types

of emergencies. There are approximately 1.1 million men and women in the fire and

emergency services—305,150 career firefighters and 795,600 volunteer firefighters—

serving in 30,400 fire departments around the country. They are trained to respond

to all risks and hazards ranging from earthquakes, hurricanes, tornadoes and floods,

to acts of terrorism, hazardous materials incidents, technical rescues, fires, and

medical emergencies.

The fire service protects America’s critical infrastructure—the electrical grid,

interstate highways, railroads, pipelines, petroleum and chemical facilities—and is,

in fact, even considered part of the critical infrastructure. The fire service protects

most federal buildings, provides mutual aid to most military bases, and protects

interstate commerce. No passenger airliner takes off from a runway that is not protected by a fire department. The transport of hazardous materials is an integral

part of the U.S. economy, and when they spill or ignite, the fire service responds

to protect lives and clean up the mess.

The U.S. Fire Administration

The U.S. Fire Administration plays a major role in preparing the fire service for

all hazards. The mission of the USFA is ‘‘to reduce life and economic loss to fire

and related emergencies through leadership, coordination, and support.’’ In Fiscal

Year (FY) 2007, the USFA’s National Fire Academy trained over 8,000 fire and

emergency service officers on campus and over 76,000 through off-campus and distance-learning to respond to regional and national incidents involving all hazards.

The USFA also helps educate the public about fire safety and prevention through

partnerships with the fire service, the media, other government agencies, and safety

interest groups. Data collection is also a vital function of the USFA, including the

collection, analysis, and dissemination of information on fires and other emergency

incidents. Finally, the USFA also works with federal agencies, such as the U.S. DeVerDate 11-MAY-2000 11:08 Jan 20, 2008 Jkt 037985 PO 00000 Frm 00035 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 C:\WORKD\T&I07\100207\37985 SCIENCE1 PsN: SCIENCE1
32

partment of Homeland Security (DHS)’s Science and Technology directorate and the

National Institute of Standards and Technology, and other public and private entities to conduct research into new technologies to improve firefighter and public safety, and fire prevention, detection, and suppression.

For FY 2007, Congress appropriated $46.8 million for the USFA, an increase of

$2.3 million above the FY 2006 level. Both the House and Senate have passed appropriations bills containing $43.3 million for the USFA for FY 2008. Congress authorized $68.8 million for the USFA in FY 2008. We urge the committee to reauthorize the USFA in FY 2009 at $70 million with a five-year authorization to ensure

long-term funding stability for the agency.

Modernizing the National Fire Incident Reporting System

The National Fire Incident Reporting System (NFIRS) is an important tool for

America’s fire service. The NFIRS is the world’s largest, national, annual database

of fire and emergency incident information. Nationally, over 21,000 fire departments

report to the NFIRS each year. These departments report an average of 14 million

incidents and one million fires each year. The NFIRS is designed to receive data

pertaining to all incidents in order to cover the full-range of fire department activity.

To participate in the NFIRS, local fire departments fill out reports for fires and

other incidents using paper forms or computer files. These reports are sent to a

State office where the data are validated and consolidated into a single computerized database. The participating fire departments receive feedback reports from the

State office. Periodically, the aggregated statewide data is sent to the National Fire

Data Center at the USFA to be included in the national database.

While the NFIRS system is a helpful tool for the fire service, it is not being utilized to its potential. The current format requires fire departments to submit data

on paper or as computer files to the states, which then periodically upload the data

to the USFA. Under the current system, there can be a delay of between 12 and

18 months in compiling national data. In addition, the NFIRS only includes about

half of the reported fires that occur annually. Without accurate and timely information, the NFIRS system cannot correctly produce a timely analysis of fire damage

in the U.S., and can only produce historical information based on half of the actual

fire incidents.

The current NFIRS process creates long delays in getting fire data into the national reporting system, and creates the potential for decision-makers to make policy

using old or incomplete information. For example, there were a number of fires in

early 2007 that caused multiple fatalities in New York and the Midwest. Without

timely data from the NFIRS, it was difficult to ascertain if these deaths were a

record number, a growing trend, or an anomaly receiving heightened media attention.

The IAFC urges Congress to authorize $3 million over three years to enhance the

NFIRS data collection system and transform it into a real-time web reporting tool.

While we understand that it is not possible to analyze fire data overnight, we believe that it is possible to close the 12- to 18-month delay by making the system

easier and more user-friendly for inputting data. The Senate appropriated $1 million to modernize the NFIRS in H.R. 2638, the FY 2008 Department of Homeland

Security Appropriations bill and we hope that the USFA reauthorization bill will include language authorizing this project.

The Role of the USFA in the U.S. Department of Homeland Security

Considering its unique relationship, the USFA can play an important role in influencing DHS’ preparedness and response policies. In the post-9/11 world, a number

of federal policies affect the local fire department, including the National Preparedness Guidelines, the National Infrastructure Preparedness Plan, the National Incident Management System and the new National Response Framework. It is important to ensure that these federal policies are practicable for the local first responder

during an emergency, terrorist attack or disaster. The USFA brings the perspective

of the front-line firefighter to policy discussions.

Currently, the USFA staffs a seat at the National Operations Center (NOC). The

NOC serves as the Nation’s nerve center for information sharing and domestic incident management. Operating 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, the NOC collects and

fuses information from a wide variety of sources to help deter, detect, and aid in

the response to terrorist attacks and natural disasters. The USFA can play an important role in the NOC by obtaining information from different fire departments

around the country and making sure that it is fused with other information regarding a possible threat. In addition, the USFA can relay information on a possible

threat to a local fire department. For example, if there was a threat of a chlorine

33

bomb in Kansas City, the NOC could inform me of that threat so that the hazmat

teams in the Kansas City area would be ready to respond.

It is important to ensure that the USFA is adequately funded to perform its DHS

role. By having more policy staff, the agency can play a stronger role in policy discussions here in Washington. The NOC position also is a vital resource for the fire

service that needs funding.

Residential Sprinkler Campaign

The USFA is engaged in an aggressive plan to advocate the increased use of residential fire sprinklers. Currently, only about two percent of American homes have

fire sprinklers. However, fire sprinklers can play a major role in saving lives and

preventing property damage. According to the National Fire Protection Association,

‘‘when sprinklers are present in structures. . ., the fire death rate per 1,000 reported structure fires is lower by at least 57 percent and the rate of property damage per reported structure fire is lower by one-third to two-thirds (34–68 percent).’’

The USFA’s public education program can inform the public about the advantages

of installing fire sprinklers in homes, which should reduce both civilian and firefighter deaths and property damage resulting from fires.

Wildland Fires

A growing challenge for the fire service is the growth of the wildland-urban interface (WUI). As residential growth expands into traditionally rural areas, there is an

increase in the amount of property damage that has occurred from fires. The annual

estimated costs for combating wildland fires exceed $500 million for local governments and $2 billion for State and federal agencies, a large portion of which is in

the WUI. In addition, insurance companies spend over $250 million per year in covering the damage caused by WUI fires.

Many fire departments, especially those not in the West, are just beginning to recognize the challenges of fighting fires in the WUI. There are many tactical differences between fighting a structural fire and a wildland fire. The USFA has traditionally developed strong relationships with the structural departments around the

country. By working more closely with the U.S. Department of Agriculture and U.S.

Department of Interior, the USFA can become the leading agency in educating the

traditionally structural fire departments about how to safely and effectively respond

to fire in the interface and help educate the public about fire prevention and mitigation in the WUI.

Emergency Medical Services

It is important to recognize that EMS is an important part of the U.S. fire service.

According to the USFA’s ‘‘Four Years Later—A Second Needs Assessment,’’ 67 percent of the responding fire departments provide emergency medical service. In communities with populations over one million people (major metropolitan areas), 100

percent of the departments provide EMS. As the Nation develops policies to deal

with threats such as large-scale terrorist attacks and pandemic influenza, the USFA

can play a role in helping the fire service and fire-based EMS prepare for these

threats. In addition, the USFA can help to educate the DHS leadership, other federal agencies, and the public about the role of fire-based EMS in their areas.

Conclusion

Thank you again for the opportunity to address this committee. On behalf of

America’s fire-EMS chiefs, I would like to thank you for your continued support. I

look forward to working with you as the Committee takes action to reauthorize the

USFA.

BIOGRAPHY FOR STEVEN P. WESTERMANN

Chief Westermann has served as Chief of Department to the Central Jackson

County Fire Protection District since 1988 and has been in the fire service since

1972. He has been a member of the IAFC since 1987 and prior to serving as President, he served as the International Director for the Missouri Valley Division. He

has also served on the IAFC’s NFPA 1710 Implementation Guide Task Force,

chaired the National Policy Centers Task Force and currently serves on the Labor

Management Initiative committee. He has served as President of both the Heart of

America Kansas City Metro Fire Chiefs Council and the Missouri Association of Fire

Chiefs. Westermann has a Master’s in Public Administration from the University

of Missouri-Kansas City, is an EFO graduate and a graduate of the Senior Executives in State and Local Government program at Harvard University.

34

Chairman WU. Thank you very much, Chief Westermann. Captain Livingston, please proceed.

STATEMENT OF CAPTAIN ROBERT LIVINGSTON, LEGISLATIVE

DIRECTOR OF THE OREGON STATE COUNCIL OF FIRE

FIGHTERS, INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF FIRE FIGHTERS

Mr. LIVINGSTON. Chairman Wu, Ranking Member Gingrey, and

Members of the Committee, my name is Bob Livingston. I’m a Captain in the Salem, Oregon Fire Department and a proud member

of the International Association of Fire Fighters. I am pleased to

appear before you today on behalf of IAFF General President Harold Schaitberger and the more than a quarter-million full-time

emergency response personnel who comprise our organization.

Whether responding to everyday emergencies or major disasters,

America’s professional firefighters and emergency medical personnel are on the front lines every day working tirelessly to save

lives and to protect public safety.

Today’s professional firefighter is an all-purpose emergency responder, trained in such specialized disciplines as emergency medical care, hazardous/WMD materials response and technical rescue.

It is from this perspective, as America’s frontline domestic defenders, that we view the mission and programs of the United States

Fire Administration.

As the role of firefighters has expanded to meet the needs of

their communities and their citizens, so too must the role of the

USFA evolve to meet the needs of the 21st century fire service.

The USFA of the 21st century must evolve to fully embrace and

support the fire service’s role in emergency medical services,

hazmat, and WMD response.

Pre-hospital 9–1–1 emergency response has become a principal

duty of the fire service such that today’s fire service provides first

medical response for virtually every community in America. Similarly, the growing number and dangerous nature of incidents involving hazardous materials has elevated the importance of hazmat

training and preparedness within the fire service. USFA must fully

integrate EMS and hazmat/WMD training and preparedness into

its missions and programs. While confident that USFA appreciates

the importance of expanding its work in these arenas, we remain

concerned that these efforts are not widely recognized.

Within the Federal Government, for example, dozens of federal

agencies administer programs and provide funding that impacts

the fire service. Yet, too often these agencies have little knowledge

about who we are and what we do. USFA should therefore bolster

its efforts to educate others including agencies within the Federal

Government about the duties of the modern fire service, especially

the crucial role firefighters play in providing emergency medical

services, hazmat, and WMD preparedness.

USFA has successfully furthered the professional development of

the fire service through the Fire Academy. To expand the Academy’s reach, USFA should expand its remote training and education programs. Federally funded training programs currently offered by the IAFF provide an excellent model for the sort of delivery system USFA could utilize toward this end.

35

By partnering with entities that have effective local delivery systems such as the IAFF, USFA could offer Academy courses to those

for whom traveling to Emmitsburg is impractical. In addition to enhancing its many ongoing worthwhile projects, we believe there is

one significant new initiative that USFA should undertake. Since

its inception, USFA has helped reduce both the number of fires, as

well as the number of civilian deaths from fire. Unfortunately, far

less progress has been made reducing line-of-duty deaths among

firefighters.

While it will never be possible to eliminate line-of-duty deaths,

we must commit to significantly reducing the number of firefighter

fatalities. We understand much of what must be done to protect

firefighters: providing adequate training and equipment, using safe

operating procedures and staffing levels and ensuring the physical

and mental health of firefighters. Yet, despite the advocacy of

USFA and non-profit organizations, the fire service has been slow

to adopt practices that would save lives. Although some departments have embraced safe practices and procedures, the traditional

approach to institute change within the fire service from the bottom up has largely failed. In my home town of Salem, Oregon, for

example, communications between police and fire personnel via

portable radio are currently impossible. While Salem is working expeditiously to implement a plan to overcome its communication

challenges, many communities have yet to address the need for

public safety interoperability. It doesn’t have to be this way. The

time has come for the Federal Government to take a bold and proactive role to reduce the number of firefighter fatalities through the

adoption of national standards for safe firefighter operations, training, staffing, and fitness. We needn’t recreate the wheel; the National Fire Protection Association has developed widely respected

fire safety codes and standards using an open consensus-based development process. Similarly, Project 25 provides for common system standards to achieve interoperability. USFA should make it

part of its core mission to ensure every fire department in America

complies with national fire safety standards, and we should use the

programs and resources of the Federal Government to help achieve

this goal.

In closing, on behalf of the IAFF, I appreciate the opportunity to

testify on the future of the U.S. Fire Administration. As you continue working to reauthorize USFA, we urge you to consider enhancing its programs and services to meet the needs of the modern

fire service, including an increased emphasis on EMS, hazmat,

WMD response. Furthermore, we hope the Committee will give serious consideration to novel ways by which USFA may help reduce

the number of firefighter deaths, including advocating for the adoption of and compliance with national standards for safe firefighting.

I thank the Committee and look forward to your questions.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Livingston follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF ROBERT LIVINGSTON

Thank you Chairman Wu, Ranking Member Gingrey, and distinguished Members

of the Committee for the opportunity to testify before you today. My name is Bob

Livingston. I serve as a Captain in the Salem, Oregon Fire Department, and I am

also a proud member of the International Association of Fire Fighters (IAFF). I am

pleased to appear before you today on behalf of IAFF General President Harold

36

Schaitberger and the more than quarter million full-time emergency response personnel who comprise our organization.

Protecting over 85 percent of the Nation’s population, America’s professional firefighters and emergency medical personnel are on the front lines every day working

tirelessly to save lives and protect the public safety. Whether responding to everyday emergencies or large-scale disasters, be it massive flooding in the Gulf Coast,

a terrorist attack in New York, a vehicle crash in Cleveland, a hazardous chemical

release in North Carolina, or a residential fire in Salem, the men and women of the

IAFF are first to arrive on the scene and the last to leave.

Our members’ dedication is matched only by the technical expertise they bring to

their mission. Today’s professional firefighter is an all-purpose emergency responder

trained in such specialized disciplines as emergency medical care, hazardous/WMD

materials response and high-angle, confined space and water rescue.

The days of firefighters whose primary function was to ‘‘put the wet stuff on the

red stuff’’ are long gone. The men and women of the 21st Century fire service have

evolved into highly-trained, highly skilled all-purpose emergency responders with

broad responsibilities.

It is from this unique perspective as America’s frontline domestic defenders that

we view the mission, activities and services of the United States Fire Administration (USFA).

Originally created to ensure a federal focus on the national fire problem described

in the original America Burning report, Congress tasked the USFA with reducing

the incidence of death, injury and property loss from fire through public education,

data collection, research and training. But as firefighters have expanded their duties, responsibilities, and capabilities to meet the needs of their communities and

their citizens, so too must USFA evolve to meet the needs of the 21st Century fire

service.

New Roles, New Responsibilities

Traditionally focused on the fire control and fire prevention duties inherent to

firefighting, the USFA of the 21st Century must evolve to embrace and support the

fire service’s role in EMS and hazmat response.

Pre-hospital 9–1–1 emergency response has, in recent years, become a principal

duty of the fire service such that today, the fire service has become the first medical

responder for critical illness and injury in virtually every community in America.

According to a recent survey of the 200 largest cities in the United States, 97 percent of such cities deliver pre-hospital 9–1–1 emergency medical response through

the fire service. Additionally, the fire service provides advanced life support response and care in 90 percent of the thirty most populous U.S. jurisdictions.

The prevalence of fire-based EMS throughout the United States requires that the

Fire Administration fully integrate EMS training and preparedness into its mission.

USFA must continue to offer advanced EMS training to emergency responders as

well as working to assist responders in preparing for a mass casualty event, such

as pandemics and other disasters.

While we are confident that USFA appreciates the importance of expanding its

work in the EMS arena, we remain concerned that these efforts are not widely recognized. Organizations and policy-makers concerned about EMS issues have long

bemoaned the absence of a ‘‘home’’ in the Federal Government for EMS, and they

have advocated creation of a new entity modeled on the USFA but devoted to EMS

issues. While we believe any such entity would be duplicative and counterproductive, we nevertheless acknowledge that there is a perception that USFA is

not adequately focused on EMS. We therefore recommend that USFA increase its

efforts to educate the EMS community about its work in this important area. And

we further call on USFA to educate others in the Federal Government of the critical

importance and merit of fire-based EMS.

Similarly, while America’s firefighters had always been the de-facto first responders to hazardous materials incidents, the skyrocketing number and increasingly

dangerous nature of such incidents in recent years has elevated the importance of

hazmat training and preparedness within the fire service. According to the National

Fire Protection Association, each year, fire departments receive 354,000 calls related

to hazardous materials emergency response. Furthermore, as more and more chemicals become part of our daily lives and as the transport of hazardous materials continues to grow, the complexity and dangers of hazmat emergency response have

multiplied.

Not only has the presence of hazardous materials in our communities increased

dramatically, but the current and ominous threat of terrorism looms large for our

nation’s firefighters. The possibility that terrorists will target shipments of hazardous materials or seek to use other weapons of mass destruction on U.S. soil, such

37

as biological or chemical weapons, is very real. Faced with this reality, it is more

important than ever that USFA work to ensure that our nation’s emergency responders are properly trained and fully prepared to respond to incidents involving

hazardous materials, including weapons of mass destruction.

Enhanced Education Delivery

The United States Fire Administration and the U.S. Fire Academy have successfully and effectively helped to further the professional development of the fire service through current training and educational programs. As many firefighters and

emergency medical personnel are unable to attend on-campus programs, the Academy has rightly moved to offer distance learning and locally sponsored delivery

through the various State fire training programs.

To expand the Academy’s reach and help achieve the goal of professional development among America’s firefighters, the USFA should expand their remote training

and education programs. The federally-funded training programs currently offered

by the IAFF provide an excellent model for the sort of delivery system USFA could

utilize towards this end. Using a cadre of instructors who are both certified fire

service instructors and certified hazmat responders, the IAFF offers real-world

training in hazardous materials response that few institutions can match. We are

able to take the training into communities and tailor the presentations to address

the unique concerns of each fire department. Furthermore, a recent analysis by the

National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences found that the IAFF program

was the most cost-effective method of live training.

By partnering with organizations and institutions that have established effective

local delivery systems, such as the IAFF, to offer National Fire Academy courses

to those firefighters for whom traveling to Emmitsburg is impractical or impossible,

USFA could easily and efficiently increase the number of firefighters to benefit from

its training programs.

An Advocate for the Fire Services

In addition to strengthening its own work in support of the fire service, we believe

USFA has a role to play in promoting the fire service throughout the Federal Government. There are literally dozens of federally agencies that administer programs

and provide funding that impact the fire service, but too often these agencies have

little background or knowledge about who we are and what we do. We therefore

urge USFA to enhance its role as an advocate for the fire service with its sister federal agencies, especially within DHS.

USFA already has an excellent relationship with the Office of Grants and Training. The two agencies work cooperatively administering FIRE and SAFER grants to

local fire departments. USFA should build upon these kinds of established relationships and establish new relationships to continue acting as an advocate for the fire

service and the expertise we can bring to bear within DHS and throughout the Federal Government.

Protecting Fire Fighter Safety and Health

In addition to enhancing its many ongoing worthwhile projects, we believe there

is one significant new initiative that USFA should undertake. Since its inception in

1974, the U.S. Fire Administration has helped reduce both the number of fires as

well as the number of civilian deaths and injuries from fire. Unfortunately, far less

progress has been made reducing the number of line-of-duty deaths and injuries

among firefighters. The annual number of deaths has hovered between 100 and 120

for many years. Given the advances in firefighting science and technology, including

advances in personal protective equipment as well as a better understanding of the

importance of safe firefighting operations and firefighter fitness, these numbers remain far too high and are completely unacceptable.

The problem of avoidable firefighter fatalities has been recognized for over thirty

years, yet we as a nation continue struggling to keep the men and women who put

their lives on the line every day safe. While it will never be possible to eliminate

all line-of-duty deaths, we must, both as first responders and policy-makers, commit

to significantly reducing the number of firefighter fatalities each year.

We understand much of what must be done to prevent many firefighter deaths.

Providing adequate training and proper equipment, establishing safe staffing levels,

following safe operating procedures, ensuring the physical and mental health of firefighters—all of these can help reduce avoidable fatalities. Unfortunately, and despite the advocacy of USFA and government-funded nonprofit organizations, the fire

service has been slow to adopt the many practices that would save lives and prevent

injury. Although some firefighters and some fire departments have fully embraced

many changes to ensure firefighter safety, the traditional approach to institute

change within the fire service from the ‘‘bottom-up’’ has, to a large degree, failed.

38

In my home town of Salem, Oregon, for example, we experience the same problems with communications inter-operability as do many communities across America. Simply put, radios belonging to the Salem Fire Department are incompatible

with those belonging to the Salem Police Department. It is currently impossible for

a police officer and a firefighter to communicate via portable radio. Obviously, this

disconnect can create a very dangerous scenario for both first responders and the

public when timely communications is of the essence. Fortunately, Salem has a plan

to overcome its communications challenges, which it is working expeditiously to implement, but for many communities, the significant challenge of public safety communications remains.

It doesn’t have to be this way. The time has come for the Federal Government

to take a bold and proactive role in reducing the number of firefighter fatalities and

injuries. The number one recommendation I can make to achieve this goal is the

adoption of national standards for safe firefighter operations, training, staffing and

fitness.

The good news is we needn’t recreate the wheel to accomplish this goal. The National Fire Protection Association, represented here today by Doctor Hall, has developed over three hundred consensus codes and standards relating to fire safety, including but not limited to standards for safe firefighter staffing, training, and operations. Using an open, consensus-based development process, the NFPA and NFPA

standards are widely respected throughout the fire service, as well as the Federal

Government and private sector. Similarly, via Project 25, organizations representing

public safety and the communications industry have established common system

standards for public safety radio communications, compliance with which would go

a long way towards addressing many of our nation’s inter-operability problems.

USFA should make it part of its core mission to ensure every fire department in

America complies with fire safety standards. We call on USFA to examine how the

Federal Government can use its programs and resources to promote adherence to

such standards throughout the Nation. Some of the ways this might be accomplished include requiring fire departments to commit to national consensus standards in order to participate in federal programs or receive federal assistance. The

Federal Government has vast resources at its disposal to encourage change, and we

believe the full force of these resources must be brought to bear on the goal of reducing firefighter deaths and injuries.

In addition to promoting compliance with national fire safety standards, more dollars must be invested in fire research and technology. The advances achieved from

federal research sponsored by USFA, NIOSH, and other agencies have resulted in

dramatically improved equipment and technology that no doubt will have a positive

impact on firefighter safety.

And, current efforts within USFA and the Congress to improve the accuracy of

data collected by the National Fire Information Recording System (NFIRS) will help

assure a more complete picture of equipment and technology needs. The IAFF

strongly supports full funding of the NFIRS enhancement project. By providing

more accurate, real-time information, the improved data collected as a result of the

NFIRS reform project will better inform USFA-sponsored research efforts as well as

identify additional fire and fire safety trends.

Conclusion

On behalf of the IAFF, I appreciate the opportunity to offer our perspective on

the future of the U.S. Fire Administration. As you continue working to reauthorize

the U.S. Fire Administration, we urge you to consider enhancing the Administration’s programs and services to meet the 21st Century needs of the modern fire service, including an increased emphasis on EMS and hazmat/WMD response. Furthermore, we hope the Committee will give serious consideration to novel ways by which

the Administration may help reduce the number of firefighter deaths and injuries,

including advocating for the adoption of and compliance with national standards for

safe firefighting at all levels of government. I welcome the opportunity to work with

the Committee to this end.

Again, I would like to thank the Committee for its attention and I would be happy

to answer any questions you may have.

BIOGRAPHY FOR ROBERT LIVINGSTON

Bob Livingston is working on his 15th year with the Salem Fire Department having served in the capacity as firefighter/paramedic and apparatus operator. He is

currently a Captain assigned to Station 1 serving the downtown area of Salem—

Oregon’s Capital city.

39

Captain Livingston has an Associate’s degree in emergency medical services and

a Bachelor’s degree in Public Administration from San Diego State University

(1990) where he also played four years of intercollegiate baseball for the Aztecs.

While employed with the Salem Fire Department, Captain Livingston also earned

a Master’s degree in Public Administration from Portland State University (2001)

with an emphasis in labor management relations.

Along with his higher education degrees, Mr. Livingston is certified as an Oregon

paramedic, has received instruction as an Incident Safety Officer, NIMS, technical

rescue disciplines such as rope and confined space rescue, hazardous materials at

the operations level, and has also served as an instructor and speaker at the annual

IAFF EMS conference on the handling of public/private partnerships for ambulance

transport.

Bob has served on Oregon’s Board on Public Safety Standards and Training

(BPSST) which oversees the training and standardization of Oregon’s public safety

officers including police, corrections, and firefighters in the State of Oregon. During

his tenure on the board, Bob also served as the Chair of the Fire Policy Committee

and was also a member of the Executive Board of BPSST.

For the past 12 years Bob has served as the Legislative Director for the Oregon

State Fire Fighters Council (OSFFC) advocating for the frontline professional firefighters of Oregon at the State and federal level. The OSFFC is the State affiliate

to the IAFF and its 281,000 members represented by General President Harold

Schaitberger.

Bob has been married for 17 years to his wife Suzette and has two children—

Kaitlin, 14 and a freshman at South Salem High School, and a son Nick, a 7th grader at Leslie Middle School in Salem. A native of Oregon, prior to being employed

by the Salem Fire Department, Bob grew up in a Southern Oregon logging town and

worked both in the lumber industry and a working cattle ranch.

Chairman WU. Thank you very much, Captain Livingston. Chief

Henderson, please proceed.

STATEMENT OF MR. GORDON HENDERSON, DEPUTY CHIEF OF

OPERATIONS, ROME–FLOYD COUNTY FIRE DEPARTMENT;

PAST PRESIDENT OF THE GEORGIA STATE FIREFIGHTERS

ASSOCIATION, NATIONAL VOLUNTEER FIRE COUNCIL

Mr. HENDERSON. Chairman Wu, Dr. Gingrey, and Members of

the Subcommittee, the National Volunteer Fire Council (NVFC) appreciates the opportunity to be here today to express our views and

experiences regarding the United States Fire Administration

(USFA) and the National Fire Academy (NFA).

As Dr. Gingrey mentioned earlier, I am a Past President of the

Georgia Firefighters’ Association. The Georgia State Firefighters’

Association is a member of the National Volunteer Fire Council

which represents the interests of the Nation’s approximately one

million volunteer firefighters and emergency medical personnel

who staff more than 30,000 fire and EMS agencies nationwide.

Over the years, the roles associated with fire and emergency

services have greatly expanded. Gone are the days when our primary responsibilities were putting wet stuff on the red stuff to

make black stuff, in other words, putting out fires or transporting

patients to the hospital. Fire and emergency services personnel

now routinely deal with hazardous materials, provide emergency

medical care, and perform search and rescue in a wide range of situations. We are the first responders to dumpster fires, automobile

accidents, structure fires, wildland fires, medical emergencies, natural disasters, and yes, even terrorist attacks, and much more.

The USFA and NFA play a critical role in educating and training

fire, rescue and emergency personnel throughout the United

States. As fire and emergency services have been asked to do and

the USFA has expanded its course offerings, the USFA currently

40

offers courses in arson, communications, critical infrastructure protection, emergency medical services and rescue, fire prevention and

planning, fire service administration, firefighter health and safety,

hazardous materials, incident management, operations and tactics,

professional development, terrorism, wildfire and youth/juvenile

firesetter intervention.

In recognition of the wide range of activities that the fire and

emergency services perform, as well as the extensive course offerings that the USFA already provides, the National Volunteer Fire

Council is pleased to see that the draft reauthorizing language

would expand the types of activities that the USFA is explicitly authorized to train fire service personnel in to include dealing with

fires occurring in the wildland/urban interface, incidents involving

hazardous materials, and advanced EMS. These are each core aspects of fire and emergency service provision and deserve the recognition as such.

With today’s requirements for emergency personnel to perform

such a wide range of duties, they are also required to spend more

time training. For volunteers who work a full-time job and train on

nights and weekends, increases in training times are particularly

burdensome. The most visible and direct benefit that the USFA

provides to the volunteer fire service is the hosting of the Volunteer

Incentive Program at the National Fire Academy, which combines

two weeks’ worth of course work into an intensive six-day session.

The compressed course schedule is essential for many volunteers

who cannot take two weeks off to attend classes and the course topics are geared specifically toward addressing challenges faced in

many volunteer agencies. I have listed those in the testimony. I

won’t read those because of time.

In addition to the training provided on-site at NFA, the USFA

delivers training directly to local jurisdictions, either through online tutorials or by providing states with NFA-developed training

and educational materials to make available to local emergency responders. This allows USFA to reach a greater number of firefighters at a relatively low cost. The National Volunteer Fire Council is pleased to see that the draft authorizing language would specifically allow USFA to implement a train the trainer program,

which goes beyond simply training first responders but teaches

them to deliver the training to others.

The USFA collects, analyzes and disseminates data and information on fires and other emergency incidents to stakeholders and

members of the public. Using this information, decision-makers can

make better-informed decisions on policies and strategies to pursue

with the end result being reduced fire-related loss of life and property.

One of the data collection programs maintained by the USFA is

the National Fire Incident Reporting System, NFIRS. This is the

standard national reporting system used by U.S. fire departments

to report information on fires and other incidents to which they respond. NFIRS is supposed to allow the USFA to maintain records

of incidents in a uniform manner and develop statistics from that

data.

While NFIRS is useful in its current capacity, it needs to be updated so that reporting can be done online as well as in written

41

form. Currently, data reported using NFIRS software can take

more than a year to reach the USFA if it reaches at all. Some fire

departments purchase their own software to keep track of and

record incident data to USFA rather than using NFIRS. USFA

should develop a web-based reporting system that would allow information to flow more quickly, to the states and the USFA. The

National Volunteer Fire Council is pleased that the authorizing bill

addresses this issue.

The National Volunteer Fire Council would also like to see the

authorizing bill establish some type of link between NFIRS and the

National Emergency Medical Services Information System which is

maintained by the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration, and it collects data about incidents that occur during

EMS responses. Because the fire service handles so many EMS

calls, the National Volunteer Fire Council believes that the USFA

and NTSA should cooperate to make sure that their respective systems are capturing data that is as accurate and useful as possible.

In closing, the National Volunteer Fire Council respectfully requests that the USFA be reauthorized and that funding be placed

at a level that will allow the USFA to continue, improve, and increase the programs offered to the fire service and other emergency

services. We support the funding level as specified in the draft authorizing language and hope that they will not only be passed into

law but fully funded in future appropriations legislation. Thank

you.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Henderson follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF GORDON HENDERSON

Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee, the National Volunteer Fire

Council (NVFC) appreciates the opportunity to be here today to express our views

and experiences regarding the United States Fire Administration (USFA) and the

National Fire Academy (NFA).

My name is Gordon Henderson and it is an honor and a pleasure to appear before

you today. I have been in the fire service for 32 years. Currently, I am the Deputy

Chief of Operations in the Rome-Floyd County Fire Department in the State of

Georgia. I serve as the Chairperson of the Georgia Firefighters and Fire Chiefs

Joint Legislative Committee. I am a principle member of the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) 1001 National Professional Qualifications for Firefighters

Committee and also serve as the secretary. I am a Past President of the Georgia

State Firefighters Association (GSFA) and the GSFA is a member of the NVFC,

which represents the interests of the Nation’s approximately 1,000,000 volunteer

fire and emergency medical personnel who staff more than 30,000 fire and EMS

agencies nationwide.

Over the years, the roles associated with the fire and emergency services have

greatly expanded. Gone are the days when our primary responsibilities were ‘‘putting the wet stuff on the red stuff to make black stuff’’ in other words putting out

fires or transporting patients to the hospital. Fire and emergency services personnel

now routinely deal with hazardous materials spills, provide emergency medical care,

and perform search and rescue in a wide range of situations. We are the first responders to dumpster fires, automobile accidents, structure fires, wildland fires,

medical emergencies, natural disasters, and yes—even terrorist attacks and much

more.

The USFA and NFA play a critical role in educating and training fire, rescue and

emergency personnel throughout the United States. As the fire and emergency services have been asked to do more, the USFA has expanded its course offerings. The

USFA currently offers courses in arson, communications, critical infrastructure protection, emergency medical services/rescue, fire prevention and planning, fire service

administration, firefighter health and safety, hazardous materials, incident management, operations and tactics, professional development, terrorism, wildfire and

youth/juvenile firesetter intervention.

42

In recognition of the wide range of activities that the fire and emergency services

perform, as well as the extensive course offerings that the USFA already provides,

the NVFC is pleased to see that the draft reauthorizing language would expand the

types of activities that the USFA is explicitly authorized to train fire service personnel in to include dealing with fires occurring in the wildland/urban interface, incidents involving hazardous materials and advanced EMS. These are each core aspects of fire and emergency service provision and deserve to be recognized as such.

With today’s requirements for emergency personnel to perform such a wide range

of duties, they are also required to spend more time training. For volunteers who

work a full-time job and train on nights and weekends, increases in training times

are particularly burdensome. The most visible and direct benefit that the USFA provides to the volunteer fire service is the hosting of the Volunteer Incentive Program

(VIP) at the NFA, which combines two weeks’ worth of course work into an intensive six-day session. The compressed course schedule is essential for many volunteers who cannot take two weeks off to attend classes and the course topics are

geared specifically toward addressing challenges faced in many volunteer agencies.

Topics of the course include:

• Command and Control of Fire Department Operations at Target Hazards

• Challenges for Local Training Officers

• Command and Control of Incident Operations

• Community Education Leadership

• Fire Cause Determination for Company Officers

• Fire Protection Systems for Incident Commanders

• Leadership and Administration

• Advanced Safety Operations and Management

• Leading Community Fire Prevention

• Management Strategies for Success

• Presenting Effective Public Education Programs

• Command and General Staff Functions in the Incident Command System

• Juvenile Firesetter Intervention Specialist I & II Leadership

In addition to the training provided on-site at NFA, the USFA delivers training

directly to local jurisdictions, either through online tutorials or by providing states

with NFA-developed training and educational materials to be made available to

local emergency responders. This allows USFA to reach a greater number of firefighters at a relatively low cost. The NVFC is pleased to see that the draft authorizing language would specifically allow USFA to implement a ‘‘train the trainer’’

program, which goes beyond simply training first responders but teaches them to

deliver that training to others.

The USFA collects, analyzes and disseminates data and information on fires and

other emergency incidents to stakeholders and members of the public. Using this

information, decision-makers can make better-informed decisions on policies and

strategies to pursue with the end result being reduced fire-related loss of life and

property.

One of the data collection programs maintained by the USFA is the National Fire

Incident Reporting System (NFIRS), this is the standard national reporting system

used by U.S. fire departments to report information on fires and other incidents to

which they respond. NFIRS is supposed to allow the USFA to maintain records of

incidents in a uniform manner and develop statistics from that data.

While NFIRS is useful in its current capacity, it needs to be updated so that reporting can be done online as well as in written form. Currently, data that is reported using NFIRS software can take more than a year to reach the USFA if it

reaches at all. Some fire departments purchase their own software to keep track of

and report incident data to USFA rather than using NFIRS. USFA should develop

a web-based reporting system that would allow information to flow more quickly—

to states and the USFA. The NVFC is pleased that the authorizing bill addresses

this issue.

The NVFC would also like to see the authorizing bill establish some type of link

between NFIRS and the National Emergency Medical Services Information System

(NEMSIS). NEMSIS, which is maintained by the National Highway Transportation

Safety Administration (NHTSA), collects data about incidents that occur during

EMS responses. Because the fire service handles so many EMS calls, the NVFC believes that the USFA and NHTSA should cooperate to make sure that their respective systems are capturing data that is as accurate and useful as possible.

43

A major area of concern for the NVFC is that the number of volunteer firefighters

in the U.S. is decreasing. According to a National Fire Protection Association

(NFPA) study, between 1983 and 1988, the number of volunteer firefighters in the

country has gone from close to 900,000 to approximately 800,000. Since 1988, the

number of volunteers has fluctuated up and down but remained close to 800,000.

Over that same period of time, the number of volunteer firefighters per person in

this country has declined by 26.7 percent.

In addition to the declining numbers, the average age of volunteer firefighters is

increasing. In 1987, 63.2 percent of the firefighters serving in communities of less

than 2,500—almost all volunteers—were under the age of 39. In 2005, the percentage was down to 51.7 percent under the age of 39. The ages of firefighters serving

communities with populations of 24,999 or less, which are also mostly volunteers,

have shifted in a similar fashion.

To improve staffing at volunteer public safety agencies, the USFA recently

partnered with the NVFC to develop ‘‘Recruitment and Retention for the Volunteer

Emergency Services,’’ a 237-page guide that identifies more than 30 specific challenges to recruiting and retaining volunteers and offers multiple suggestions on how

to overcome each of them. The USFA has sponsored recruitment and retention

workshops around the country based on the information contained in the guide. The

NVFC and the USFA recently agreed to work together to create a video companion

to the guide that will be made available to the public.

Mr. Chairman, in my invitation to testify here today you specifically requested information about the challenges facing rural volunteer fire departments in reaching

out to their communities to teach fire prevention and fire safety education. Teaching

fire prevention and fire safety education is one of many non-emergency functions

that volunteer fire departments perform. Each of these functions requires additional

volunteer hours, which places stress on the membership of a volunteer fire department. One strategy for combating this is using retired volunteer firefighters who no

longer respond to emergencies, or community members who are not trained as firefighters, to perform these tasks.

A great example of this is the Johnson County Rural Fire District #1 in Clarksville, Arkansas, partnering with students from the local University of the Ozarks’

Phi Beta Lambda organization. The partnership was established in 2005 and today

over 100 students assist this small rural department with their fire safety education

programs. With the help of the department’s firefighters and non-operational volunteers, the Johnson County RFD #1 increased the hours of its fire safety education

programs from approximately 100 hours per year before 2005 to 8,600 hours in

2006. Since the inception of its Fire Corps program, the group’s efforts have reached

nearly one million people on the local, State, and national levels with their important fire safety messages. Through these efforts, this small department has affected

a dramatic 34 percent decrease in fire-related property loss. . .all at little to no cost

to the department.

The Johnson County RFD #1 program was actually established through a program called Fire Corps, which is part of the Department of Homeland Security’s Citizen Corps program and is administered jointly by the NVFC and the International

Association of Fire Chiefs. Fire Corps provides career, combination and volunteer

fire departments with resources to help attract community members to serve the

fire department in nonoperational roles. The USFA participates in meetings of the

Fire Corps National Advisory Committee, made up of 15 non-governmental organizations representing different constituencies within the fire service. The USFA also

helps promote Fire Corps at fire service trade shows and at NFA.

In closing, the NVFC respectfully requests that USFA be reauthorized and that

funding be placed at a level that will allow the USFA to continue, improve, and increase the programs offered to the fire service and other emergency services. We

support the funding levels specified in the draft authorizing language and hopes

that they will not only be passed into law but fully funded in future appropriations

legislation.

Once again, thank you again for the opportunity to speak to you today. If there

are questions from the Committee, I will be glad to respond to them at this time.

BIOGRAPHY FOR GORDON HENDERSON

Deputy Chief of Operations, Rome Fire Department, Rome, Georgia

Married—Dawn, two children, two grandchildren

44

Memberships:

International Association of Fire Chiefs

Southeastern Association of Fire Chiefs

Georgia Association of Fire Chiefs

District Vice President of the Georgia Association of Fire Chief

Georgia State Firefighters Association

Past President of the Georgia State Firefighters Association

Chair of the Georgia State Firefighters Association/Georgia Fire Chiefs Association

Joint Legislative Committee

Member and secretary of the NFPA 1001 National Professional Qualifications for

Firefighters Committee

BS in Business Administration with HRM concentration

Candidate for MBA with concentration in Public Administration

Chairman WU. Thank you very much, Chief. Dr. Hall, please proceed.

STATEMENT OF DR. JOHN R. HALL, JR., ASSISTANT VICE

PRESIDENT, FIRE ANALYSIS AND RESEARCH, NATIONAL

FIRE PROTECTION ASSOCIATION

Dr. HALL. Chairman Wu, Dr. Gingrey, and other Subcommittee

Members, the National Fire Protection Association and I greatly

appreciate the opportunity to speak to you in support of reauthorization of the U.S. Fire Administration.

The USFA has funded and conducted over the years defining research projects on a full range of fire prevention and mitigation

technologies. They have also partnered on research to improve the

technologies that first responders use to do their jobs safely and effectively. For example, the USFA has worked closely with NIST on

computer analysis of fires where firefighters die leading to new

training tools and changes in firefighting tactics and procedures.

NFPA is America’s principal source for national voluntary consensus codes and standards related to both fire safety and the fire

service. Our standards use a true consensus approach with a balance of interests to address a broad range of topics such as professional qualifications and performance testing, maintenance, and operation standards for protective and firefighting equipment. Over

400 Federal Government staff including USFA and NIST, participate in the NFPA standards development process, and our documents have benefited greatly from USFA and NIST expertise.

NFPA agrees with the legislation that development and enhancement of national voluntary consensus standards is important to the

USFA mission. We welcome this recognition of the importance of

standards in translating the latest scientific research into practice.

NFPA conducts some research itself, and we established the Fire

Protection Research Foundation as an independent entity to partner funders with researchers on projects relevant to our mission.

NIST has provided researchers and the USFA has provided funding for Research Foundation projects. Research has brought us

closer to understanding some of the technical controversies surrounding home smoke alarms, fire sprinklers, sensors for detection

of incipient fire conditions, innovative high performance materials,

and the list goes on and on. But despite these controversies, decisions must still be made. At any given time, best judgments must

be used when definitive technical answers might be no more than

45

one well-designed project away. Best practices must be based on

existing technology because promising new technologies lack independent testing and evaluation.

In 2006, the USFA and NFPA partnered on a Second Fire Service Needs Assessment, and it found improvement on some measures of aggregate and national need. For example, the percentage

of departments with portable radios to equip everyone on a shift

rose from 23 percent to 36 percent. The percentage of departments

with self-contained breathing apparatus for all emergency responders rose from 30 percent to 40 percent. The percentage of departments with personal alert safety system devices for all emergency

responders on a shift rose from 38 percent to 52 percent, and the

percentage of departments with written agreements to coordinate

use of outside personnel and equipment rose from 19 percent to 26

percent for a building collapse and from 21 percent to 30 percent

for a biological chemical agent scenario.

Some were surprised that the improvements were not more dramatic and did not extend to more types of resources. We were not

because we knew that a grant program funded at about $500 million a year could not expect to rapidly transform a set of fire service needs collectively estimated to cost many tens of billions of dollars. We suggest that Congress use our needs assessment as a tool

for priority setting.

In my real job back home, I am head of the group that produces

and analyzes fire statistics; so the one database that is most important to make my work at NFPA more effective and planning for the

USFA more strategic is NFIRS. For three decades, NFIRS has been

essential in defining our national fire problem. Despite its great

value, NFIRS has been subject to criticism—this year on timeliness. I believe web-based reporting can be a valuable enhancement,

but we need to understand what it can and cannot do. NFIRS is

a sample of fires responded to by fire department. Valid analysis

depends on use of a representative sample of sufficient size. Currently the full NFIRS sample is large enough that representativeness is usually not a problem. However, if data were analyzed year

to date, there would be less data and less representative data because of differences in speed of reporting by community, size, and

region. Also, NFIRS’ quality depends on editing at the local, State,

and national levels. Requiring web-based, real-time reporting could

discourage or eliminate some or all of this editing. I urge the Subcommittee to give the USFA professionals the funding to expand

the system but also the flexibility to fill in the details.

I think I speak not only for NFPA but for all the fire safety community in saying we need a strong USFA, a USFA that does the

things it does better than anyone else and makes it easy for everyone else to do what they do best. We agree that the reauthorization

bill should reinforce the range of technologies that are appropriate

to the USFA mission but resist the temptation to direct the application of resources among these technologies.

We trust the new leader of the USFA, Chief Gregory Cade, and

the USFA professionals to make the best choices; and on that

basis, the NFPA strongly and enthusiastically supports the reauthorization of the U.S. Fire Administration. Thank you, sir.

[The prepared statement of Dr. Hall follows:]

46

PREPARED STATEMENT OF JOHN R. HALL, JR.

Good morning. I am Dr. John Hall, Assistant Vice President for Fire Analysis and

Research at the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA). Mr. Chairman, fellow

Subcommittee Members, NFPA and I greatly appreciate the opportunity to speak

to you today in support of the reauthorization of the U.S. Fire Administration

(USFA).

Before I address the main questions in this hearing, I would like to look at the

record of the USFA over its more than three decades. Year in and year out, the

USFA demonstrates high professional skill, strategic vision, the ability to set priorities, and a sustained dedication to its unique dual role of the leader of Federal Government fire safety and fire service programs and leader/supporter of America’s fire

and emergency services, in all the great work they do. NFPA looks forward to continuing our long and productive partnership with the USFA and in particular to

working closely with the newest U.S. Fire Administrator, Chief Gregory Cade.

1. NFPA’s Current Priorities for and Perspective on USFA and Fire Technology Related Research and Development

NFPA is America’s principal private non-profit fire safety advocacy organization.

As such, our interests in research and development are driven by the needs of programs that will maintain or improve safety from unwanted fire and other hazards

and that will help America’s first responders to safely and effectively perform their

roles of protecting the rest of us.

Fire safety programs may operate principally through innovative technology, supported by consensus codes and standards, or through behavior change, achieved by

education of ordinary people and training of professionals.

In terms of technologies for greater fire safety, NFPA is a strong advocate of the

proven value and future potential of smoke alarms and fire sprinklers, as well as

design changes to powered equipment and other heat sources, changes in the fire

performance of materials and products, and changes in the knowledge and behaviors

of people.

In its first decade, the USFA provided strong leadership in funding, defining and

applying research to create a form of fire sprinkler protection that made engineering

and economic sense for individual housing units. More recently, the USFA has continued to look for additional innovations and approaches that will bring this lifesaving technology to more homes.

In the early years of America’s interest in smoke alarms, the USFA provided leadership in measuring the beliefs and values of American heads of households, and

in so doing, helped to accelerate the process of placing smoke alarms in nearly every

home. More recently, the USFA and many other agencies and organizations have

focused on taking smoke alarms to the millions of mostly high-risk homes that still

do not have this protection.

The USFA has also funded research by NFPA to help identify innovative solutions

to

• smoker behaviors that influence cigarette fires, still the #1 cause of fire

deaths in the U.S.;

• cooking equipment and cooking behaviors, still the #1 cause of home fires and

related injuries in the U.S.;

• and the variety of circumstances that make the fire problem of rural America

distinctive, where rural communities still have the highest fire death rates

relative to population in the U.S.

On the fire service research side, the USFA has worked closely with the National

Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST) to support advanced computer analysis of fires where firefighters are fatally injured. These studies have led to sophisticated new simulation and training tools, as well as an understanding of rare but

unusually dangerous fire phenomena and changes in firefighting tactics and procedures.

The USFA has also partnered on research on most of the technologies that firefighters and other first responders use to do their job safely and effectively, such

as:

• portable radios, where inter-operability continues to handicap firefighting in

the largest incidents;

• personal alert safety systems, where questions have arisen recently about

equipment performance in severe fire conditions;

47

• self-contained breathing apparatus and personal protective clothing, where

protection from the many threats associated with fire must be balanced with

the needs of the body to take in oxygen and get rid of heat.

These are only examples of technologies that deserve high priority because they

offer especially great promise of significant improvement in fire prevention, fire

mitigation, firefighting effectiveness, or firefighter health and safety. In every instance, the USFA has shown leadership in setting priorities, putting high-quality

projects in motion, and partnering with many agencies and organizations to accomplish shared goals.

Your draft reauthorization bill addresses the subjects of applied research and

technology in what I believe is the most appropriate manner for an agency with a

proven track record of good judgment and important results. You have reinforced

the range of technologies, including detection, prevention, suppression, and department operations, that are appropriate to the USFA mission, but you have resisted

the temptation to substitute the judgment of Congress for the judgment of the

USFA professionals in allocating resources among these technologies. You have underscored the importance of coordination and partnership with other national entities and listed many of the federal agencies best equipped to serve as partners.

But you have resisted the temptation to steer the USFA toward any particular

agency or to favor governmental partners over private partners. You have shown an

awareness of the major elements of the problem and its solutions, while also showing your trust and confidence in the USFA professionals to make the best choices.

2. Please describe NFPA’s role in setting standards and codes for firefighting technology. How does NFPA engage with USFA and NIST in the

standards setting process? Does the current statute make adequate provisions for this process?

NFPA is America’s principal source for national voluntary consensus codes and

standards related to fire safety and the fire service. Our standards and codes address such topics as:

• professional qualifications for firefighters, fire officers, fire inspectors, fire and

life safety educators, and many other specialized positions and assignments

within the fire service;

• performance, testing, maintenance, and operation standards for firefighter

protective clothing and equipment and for firefighting apparatus and equipment; and

• requirements for programs, such as training, disaster/emergency management, business continuity, and fire service occupational safety and health

maintenance.

The NFPA codes and standards development process uses a ‘‘true consensus’’ approach, in which technical committees are composed of a balance of interests, with

no one interest having a majority of votes. For fire service related standards, we

have extensive representation from organizations representing fire chiefs, fire marshals, fire investigators, firefighters, fire and life safety educators, and city and community managers. We value all our volunteers, including the over 400 staff from the

USFA, NIST and other federal agencies who participate in the NFPA process. Many

of our standards have been greatly improved due to the special expertise brought

to the committees by USFA and NIST staff.

Once NFPA standards are issued, they still need to be adopted and enforced.

Adoption decisions are made separately by individual states and municipalities.

Some federal agencies also adopt NFPA codes and standards for applications under

their jurisdiction.

The USFA cannot act directly to achieve adoption of standards by other federal

agencies, let alone by non-federal entities, but the USFA can improve the climate

in which decisions about adoption are made by forcefully and visibly supporting the

voluntary consensus codes and standards process and by putting the considerable

weight of its own reputation and leadership in support of compliance with national

fire service standards. The same can be said of NIST in those areas where its expertise is universally acknowledged.

NFPA agrees with the draft legislation that ‘‘development and enhancement of national voluntary consensus standards’’ is an important part of the USFA mission.

NFPA welcomes this recognition of the importance of such standards in translating

the latest scientific research into practice.

3. Please discuss NFPA’s work in fire prevention and firefighting technology research. How does NFPA engage with USFA and NIST in reVerDate 11-MAY-2000 11:08 Jan 20, 2008 Jkt 037985 PO 00000 Frm 00051 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 C:\WORKD\T&I07\100207\37985 SCIENCE1 PsN: SCIENCE1
48

search activities? What funding opportunities exist for extra-mural fire

research, and are they adequate? Are there areas of particular importance that are currently neglected due to lack of resources?

NFPA plays a fairly limited direct role in fire prevention and firefighting technology research. Most hands-on research done by NFPA staff is conducted within

my division, and we concentrate primarily on statistical analysis and literature reviews, plus related research in areas such as human behavior and fire risk assessment. In that capacity, NFPA has conducted funded research projects for the USFA

and NIST from the beginning.

The Fire Protection Research Foundation is an independent entity at NFPA that

brings together funders and researchers on projects to answer questions affecting

NFPA codes, standards, and other programs and activities aimed at increasing program effectiveness or cost-effectiveness in areas of fire safety or firefighter health

and safety. NIST has provided lead researchers for Research Foundation projects

and the USFA has provided funding for Research Foundation projects, including

current projects on firefighter respiratory exposure and fire code inspection and

compliance programs.

Both the USFA and NIST do an excellent job of sorting through potential projects

and supporting the ones with greatest potential. But research funding for fire safety

science and engineering and for firefighter effectiveness, safety and health has been

shrinking for many years, not only in the U.S. but around the world. This is true

for governmental research, university research, and private-sector research.

There are many technical controversies surrounding home smoke alarms, fire

sprinklers, sensors for detection of incipient fire conditions involving different types

of equipment, non-traditional detection and suppression systems, innovative highperformance materials, implications of energy conservation programs, implications

for fire safety of differing international approaches to toxicity and environmental

protection, and the list goes on. In every instance, the developers of codes and

standards have to make decisions based in part on best judgments when definitive

technical answers might be no more than one well-designed project away. In every

instance, the leaders in fire safety and firefighter health and safety have to establish requirements based on the known capabilities of existing technology because

promising new technologies lack the kind of independent testing and evaluation that

would allow them to be widely adopted if they prove out and avoided if they do not.

This nation is nowhere near the point where additional research dollars stop paying for themselves. More funds will yield results and will improve people’s lives. The

USFA professionals have shown their ability to use the funds available to them effectively and wisely.

4. Please provide an overview of the findings in the 2006 FEMA/NFPA

study, ‘‘Four Years Later—A Second Needs Assessment of the U.S. Fire

Service.’’ How can Congress use the results of this study to strengthen

the pending reauthorization legislation?

I personally led the NFPA analysis team that conducted both fire service needs

assessments. NFPA President Jim Shannon described the first needs assessment as

a ‘‘call to action.’’ The needs for essential resources were widespread, covering every

role the fire service plays and every type of resource, from personnel to training to

equipment to planning.

Because the first needs assessment took place around the 9/11 attacks on America, particular attention was given to the findings on preparedness for dealing with

unusually challenging events, including two types of terrorist attacks we had included in the survey. We conducted a cost analysis on our findings as input to the

study of terrorism preparedness by the Council on Foreign Relations, and we found

that meeting those needs alone would require tens of billions of dollars.

A separate cost analysis of needs for career firefighters identified additional tens

of billions of dollars of unmet needs to meet standards and guidelines related to firefighter staffing and coverage. That analysis was provided as support for the socalled SAFER bill.

Our second needs assessment included a matching analysis of Assistance to Firefighter grants against the reported needs of the departments that had received

those grants. We found a very high match rate, indicating that fire departments

were requesting resources that they really needed, in order to safely and effectively

perform the tasks their communities were asking them to perform.

We also found some improvement on some of the measures of aggregate national

need. For example:

• the percentage of departments that had enough portable radios to equip everyone on a shift rose from 23 percent to 36 percent;

49

• the percentage of departments with enough self-contained breathing apparatus to equip all emergency responders rose from 30 percent to 40 percent;

• the percentage of departments with enough personal alert safety system

(PASS) devices to equip all emergency responders on a shift rose from 38 percent to 52 percent; and

• the percentage of departments with written agreements to coordinate the use

of outside personnel and equipment in a response rose from 19% to 26% for

a reference building collapse scenario, from 21 percent to 30 percent for a reference biological/chemical agent scenario, and from 33 percent to 40 percent

for a reference wildland/urban interface fire scenario.

Some were surprised that the improvements were not more dramatic and did not

extend to more types of resources. (For example, staffing and training measures of

need showed no dramatic improvements.) We were not surprised because we knew

that a program funded at about a half-billion dollars a year could not expect to rapidly transform a set of fire service needs estimated collectively to cost many tens

of billions of dollars.

We suggest that Congress use our needs assessments as tools for priority-setting.

Priorities can be set by type of program or resource, where unfunded federal mandates and responsibilities that inherently cross jurisdictional lines would receive

first priority, and priorities can be set by some measure of vulnerability, where larger communities more central to the national economy or more exposed in terms of

iconic structures might receive first priority. But the key word here is ‘‘priority.’’ All

of the needs identified are real needs, and our safety will suffer—and the safety of

our first responders will suffer—for as long as we continue with these needs unmet.

But we have to start somewhere, and it makes good sense to look for additional

ways to apply funds first where they will have the greatest impact.

That having been said, it is impossible to read the needs assessments without concluding that the grant program needs to be increased in size, from a fraction of a

billion dollars annually to some multiple of a billion dollars annually. With their

strong track record of distributing grant funds for best effect in the early years of

the program and with additional guidance of another look at priority-setting rules

for even greater effect, the USFA professionals can be counted on to deliver high

value as well as greater safety and effectiveness to America in any expanded program.

5. NFIRS.

The National Fire Incident Reporting System (NFIRS) is not the subject of one

of the questions issued by the Subcommittee, but it is the subject of considerable

detailed attention in the draft legislation. Because NFIRS is the one database that

is most important to make my work at NFPA effective, I would be remiss if I did

not offer some observations on the proposed plans for NFIRS.

First, let me underscore how important NFIRS has been in defining our national

fire problem in the three decades since its inception. Through its annual stratified

random-sample survey of U.S. fire departments, NFPA has been able to define the

overall size and trends of the fire problem, but we had not been able to say much

about the details until the advent of NFIRS. Since then, NFIRS has been central

to the design of every fire prevention program and debate in the U.S., helping to

support or knock down claims of urgency for a particular fire problem or of effectiveness or promise for a particular solution.

Despite its great value, NFIRS has been subject to criticism from the beginning.

Some of the criticism has been directed at the level of detail. This has always been

a balancing act between the reporting burden on firefighters and the amount of detail sought by decision-makers. Neither side has ever been fully satisfied with the

place where that balance has been struck, and both sides have often been vocal

about their dissatisfactions. All too often, they have greatly overstated the sizes of

problems and undercut the support for the NFIRS system itself. By trying to make

it better, as they defined better, they risked making it go away.

This year, the focus is on NFIRS timeliness and on the promise of web-based reporting. I believe web-based reporting, properly integrated with the existing NFIRS

system, can be a valuable enhancement, but it is important to recognize what such

reporting can and cannot do.

Web-based reporting makes it easier to report fires. That is both its advantage

and its disadvantage. NFIRS quality depends on editing at the local, State and national levels. Many missing entries, conflicts and errors are caught during these

edits so that the final database is more accurate. Direct web-based reporting in real

time may discourage or eliminate some or all of this editing or discourage the addiVerDate 11-MAY-2000 11:08 Jan 20, 2008 Jkt 037985 PO 00000 Frm 00053 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 C:\WORKD\T&I07\100207\37985 SCIENCE1 PsN: SCIENCE1
50

tion or revision of details based on late-emerging information, such as delayed

deaths, full fire investigations, and insurance assessments.

Whatever the effect of changes in reporting, the analysis of NFIRS cannot be done

validly in real time. NFIRS is a sample of fires reported to fire departments. It is

not a census or anything close to a census. The fact that NFIRS is a sample means

that its validity depends on its representativeness. NFIRS is a large enough sample

that issues of representation by region or size of community can usually be ignored,

although recent declines in participation of the largest cities have severely affected

our ability to track and project trends in high-rise building fires.

Analysis of NFIRS data based on what has been reported to date in a given year

means a much smaller sample and reduced representativeness, reflecting the fact

that different sizes of communities and different regions are likely to differ in their

speed of reporting and in their participation in the web-based reporting. To get valid

estimates from NFIRS, you need to wait until a sufficient and representative group

of participants have fully reported.

Since 1980, most of my work has been centered around NFIRS analyses, and I

have had the privilege of being involved in nearly every major national policy debate

on fire safety and fire service effectiveness and safety in that period. In all that

time, I have rarely seen a debate that even benefited from, let alone required, very

current data. Management makes decisions when it needs to with the benefit of the

information available at that time. Some information may not be completely current; some information may lack useful details. A real-time NFIRS would inject

more current data with serious questions of quality and accuracy. That is not a prescription for improved decision-making.

In those rare instances where we really could use current data, we usually need

more detailed data than NFIRS can provide. This means we need a special data collection protocol, which we would need for the detail anyway and so might as well

use to achieve the greater timeliness. But in so doing, we need to be constantly

aware that most policy discussions are far better served by large quantities of valid

data than by the latest anecdotal-quality data.

What this means for the current draft legislation is that I urge the subcommittee

to maintain the kind of broad and flexible guidance it has used in the rest of the

legislation when it talks about NFIRS. By all means, add funds to support expanding the existing web-based reporting if you wish to do so, but leave the USFA professionals with the flexibility they need to fill in the details.

Closing Thoughts

The USFA needs and deserves your support. The USFA needs to know that Congress believes in their mission and wants them to succeed. The USFA needs to know

what you expect but not detailed requirements on how those expectations should be

met. The USFA needs to hear that Congress encourages their leadership and their

partnerships, but they need to know that Congress realizes that the USFA is already doing a great job on this score. Most of all, the USFA needs to hear that you

recognize what it costs to do what you want the agency to do and that you will seek

to align the agency’s budget with its mandates.

I think I speak not only for NFPA but for all the fire safety community in saying

that we need a strong USFA on our team. We need a USFA that does the things

it does better than anyone else and that makes it easy for everyone else to do what

they do best.

For all those reasons, the NFPA strongly and enthusiastically supports the reauthorization of the U.S. Fire Administration.

BIOGRAPHY FOR JOHN R. HALL, JR.

Education

B.A. (Mathematics), Brown University, Providence, RI, Cum Laude, 1967

Ph.D. (Operations Research), University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, 1972

Experience

1984– National Fire Protection Association, Quincy, MA

Assistant Vice President (formerly Director)

Fire Analysis and Research Division

The Division is responsible for measuring the fire problem and communicating the results as a basis for fire safety decision-making and priority-setting. In research, the Division supports the Association initiaVerDate 11-MAY-2000 11:08 Jan 20, 2008 Jkt 037985 PO 00000 Frm 00054 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 C:\WORKD\T&I07\100207\37985 SCIENCE1 PsN: SCIENCE1
51

tive toward performance-based codes and standards, and conducts research in such areas as evacuation modeling and fire risk analysis.

1982–1984 Center for Fire Research, National Bureau of Standards,

Gaithersburg, MD

Operations Research Analyst

Led development of a modeling framework for fire risk analysis. Worked

on risk analyses of home sprinklers, fire-blocking of seats on passenger

airlines and nuclear facilities.

1979–1982 Federal Emergency Management Agency, U.S. Fire Administration,

Washington, DC

Operations Research Analyst

1973–1979 Urban Institute, Washington, DC

Senior Research Associate (previously Research Associate)

1972–1973 Resource Management Corporation, Bethesda, MD

Research Analyst

DISCUSSION

Chairman WU. Thank you, Dr. Hall, and now we will turn to

Member questions, and the Chairman recognizes himself for five

minutes.

Several of the representatives of the fire services in their written

or oral testimony referred to the fact that USFA does not have sufficient resources to fully meet the needs of the local fire service

communities; and Chief Westermann, I believe you referred to that

specifically in your oral testimony. In your opinions, what are the

financial and other costs to local governments, to the fire departments, private citizens, and businesses as a result of this underinvestment in the USFA. And if we may, could we start with Chief

Westermann and move to my right, your left, and then we will finish up with Administrator Cade.

Mr. WESTERMANN. I think it is just an expansion of a lot of the

current programs that are there, beginning with the Fire Academy.

We have 8,000 people that have been on campus, only 76,000

through off-site, distance learning, but we have 1.2 million firefighters in the country, so there are a lot of firefighters who are

still not receiving some of the benefits of those programs.

Probably the other respect to an expansion of programs is the

education of our public to reduce not only the fire losses and life

losses, particularly in residential sprinklers, the smoke detectors,

things of that nature. So it is just an expansion I think of a lot of

the current programs.

Chairman WU. Captain Livingston.

Mr. LIVINGSTON. Mr. Chair, Committee Members, while I can’t

quantify a dollar number for you on the cost and where we are

with respect to the programs, certainly clearly in my testimony and

others’, we need to make some improvements with respect to firefighter fatalities and make sure that we do a good job of not only

educating about safe operations but iterating clearly that we

strongly feel that it is time to have some national standards and

look at those and not only provide for some streamlining of the fire

service but also if you are going to collect data with respect to

NFIRS, one of those components, and I think Dr. Hall mentioned

it, is that I was shocked and surprised to hear some of the numbers, like with radios, I think we went from 21 percent up to 36

52

percent. To me, that tells me that there is 64 percent of the firefighters out there that still don’t have mobile radios available for

them to use in an emergency situation. So while I appreciate the

efforts and certainly this is an important topic, the USFA has done

a great job, we live in a new world now, the 21st century; and so

I think we need to make some strides in some of these area, and

I think the USFA can be the sounding board for the fire service to

promote this, not only in the Federal Government but at the local

level as well.

Chairman WU. Thank you, Captain Livingston. Chief Henderson.

Mr. HENDERSON. In the State of Georgia, we use handoff courses

from the National Fire Academy that go out to a lot of local firefighters, and I think those handoff courses are very valuable and

I think they need to continue. I think they need to be encouraged.

We have also started in the State of Georgia going through the votech schools to put out part of the training. That also needs to be

encouraged, and when you look at those for the training to go out

to the people who make it easier for the volunteers to come in to

their local communities to get training. And also again, I would

echo what everybody else has said about residential sprinklers

now. Cobb County and Marietta where Dr. Gingery is from, actually have a residential sprinkler ordinance; and I think it has

saved a lot of lives in Cobb County and Marietta. And it is something I think that is needed nationwide. A dollar amount? I would

have no idea of what it would be, but I would say it would be expensive to the states.

Chairman WU. Thank you very much, Chief. Administrator Cade

and then if either Dr. Sunder or Dr. Hall have anything to add to

this.

Mr. CADE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Certainly within the

United States Fire Administration, what we believe right now is

that we are currently funded for the mission that we are expected

to accomplish; and obviously if Congress decides to increase the

mission for the United States Fire Administration, then hopefully

there will be some additional funding that would go along with

that increase in the mission. I think what you have heard certainly

from some of the individuals is the hunger for education and training at the local level, and that is something that I look at as not

only the head of the United States Fire Administration but also as

a fire chief—trying to figure out how do you provide the best possible training at the local level which is truly where it needs to be.

The United States Fire Administration has been trying and working very diligently with our State training directors at figuring out

how we push out the training to the local level. It would be nice

to say that all of the firefighters are going to have an opportunity

to come through the National Fire Academy. That is just not realistic. So we need to figure out better ways of continuing to use distance learning capabilities to push out those classes. We are making some modification in the training classes that we provide. We

are pilot testing some of them right now to go from a two-week

training program down to a six-day training program so there

would be some up-front work done before the individual came

there. Time is something that none of us can increase unfortunately, so we are trying to make sure that the offerings that we

53

provide through the United States Fire Administration acknowledge that that time is critical for individuals, whether they are

studying at home or studying at the Fire Academy; and we certainly are trying to make some things and make it more cost-effective to be able to use. We have just moved back obviously in once

again to FEMA, and part of that is to look at how, as we fit in

there, all of the other programs that are being done across FEMA

to look for the operational efficiencies and streamlining in that

process. So hopefully as we do that, we can redirect some of the resources that we have back into other programs.

Chairman WU. Thank you, Mr. Cade. My time has expired, but

if Dr. Sunder or Dr. Hall have anything. Dr. Hall.

Dr. HALL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. In the beginning of my remarks, I mentioned that the Fire Administration over the years

has funded a number of research projects on fire prevention and

mitigation as well as on the safety and effectiveness of the fire

service. So the question you posed I think is a question of how

much loss are we sustaining because we didn’t do more of what

they have always done well? This means we have had fires we

didn’t need to have, we have had fires that were more serious than

they needed to be, we have paid more for fire protection than we

had to pay, we have had firefighters who showed up who were not

able to stop fires as quickly as they would have been able to, and

we have had firefighters who paid a serious price of death or injury

because of a lack of equipment or training.

Quantifying how much of that we could have done how quickly

is better done on a case-by-case basis, but I will tell you that we

estimate the total cost of fire losses, plus what we spend to try to

not have more losses, at over $100 billion a year. And if you imagine, as I would imagine, that with and accelerated translation of

research into practice that we could make a serious inroad into

that number, then you are talking about potentially tens of billions

of dollars a year that you might be able to reduce for prices a small

fraction of that in the form of well-designed research projects.

Chairman WU. Thank you very much. Dr. Sunder? Thank you

very much, Dr. Hall.

Dr. SUNDER. If I may just add just a couple of comments, I think

the issues of firefighter fatalities and residential sprinklers are certainly worth noting. There is work currently under way on those

issues, particularly with regard to PASS devices and positive pressure ventilation techniques and structural collapse prediction technologies and firefighter locator and training technologies. So all of

those are being addressed. There is obviously more that could be

done, and it is a valid point, I think, that we need to look at.

With regard to residential sprinklers, we have just finished a

cost-benefit analysis of residential sprinklers, and this came out

last month and this is going to be widely disseminated. So the

building code community will have better information as they consider proposals to require residential sprinklers

Chairman WU. Thank you, Dr. Sunder. And with that, Dr.

Gingrey is recognized for five minutes.

Mr. GINGREY. Mr. Chairman, thank you. First of all, let me

thank all of our witnesses today, and this is very, very impressive.

I think we really got the experts here, both in the policy and at

54

the ground level; and it is great to hear from all of you. Your written testimonies, of course, your complete testimonies are part of

our permanent record; and I haven’t read the full testimony of each

and every one of you, but I intend to try to do that. Sometimes we

will have hearings when I don’t really have much interest in reading the full text because of what the witnesses had to say; but what

the witnesses have had to say today, Mr. Chairman, I fully intend

to read it because this is very important.

I want to ask one question. I think most of you know I am a

medical doctor and Member of the United States House of Representatives and so the question I want to ask is in regard to emergency medical response. You know, all of us go to or by the scene

of an accident or to by the scene of a fire. Sometimes you see what

I would say is a duplicative response, so obviously you need emergency medical personnel there. But you know, what can we do to

better coordinate so that people are not standing around? And I

want any one of the six of you to respond to this or all of you. You

have got so many responsibilities as you pointed that out in regard

to hazmat and weapons of mass destruction and protecting structure, evacuating personnel, making sure the fire doesn’t spread to

adjoining buildings, et cetera. If your people are tied up trying to

do CPR and administer emergency medical services and yet there

are three ambulances at the scene as well with people that are

very well-trained, Chief Westermann and Captain Livingston,

maybe the two of you can start because you addressed that more

in your oral testimony.

Mr. WESTERMANN. To start with, we firmly believe, and I believe

my colleague, Captain Livingston, will agree with this, we firmly

believe in fire-based EMS, and that simply is because our stations

are already spread out with the fire apparatus, and to put an ambulance with an engine or the ladder truck is simply logical sense

for the distribution and to reduce the response times to the incidents as low as possible.

As far as the number of people responding to the calls, and it

kind of depends on the call, but if an MVA, or motor vehicle accident, is occurring, you should have an engine and an ambulance,

at least one ambulance, on the scene depending how many patients

there are, not only for patient care and extrication of that patient

from the car but you also have a hazmat incident, you also have

a fire hazard where some of the other people will be checking into.

And as the number of patients increases, there goes the number of

ambulances needed on the scene. If we are talking about a heart

attack or something of that nature, you still end up with an engine

and an ambulance on many scenes.

Med units or ambulances are busy. Our ambulances in my organization are on the road almost 24 hours a day. The engine also

has paramedics, EMTs on them across the country; and they are

being used again in order to reduce the response time. Get the engine responding. The patient still gets the premium care as possible, and at that point, once the engine or the ladder truck gets

on the scene, paramedic is providing care, the ambulance, and I

don’t want to belittle their role, but essentially becomes the taxicab. The patient is already getting care. The ambulance comes in

from the other call or——

55

Mr. GINGREY. That is my concern. I am running out of time, and

maybe I can address it in a second round because there are not as

many people to ask questions. But that is my concern. I don’t think

the ambulance should be a taxicab, a very expensive taxicab. So

again, Captain Livingston, if you want to comment in the few seconds I have left.

Mr. LIVINGSTON. Very briefly, Chairman Wu, Ranking Member

Gingrey, just simply, we are in the life safety business, and it is

a great fit for us to be able to provide emergency medical care in

the pre-hospital setting. As a paramedic myself, I can tell you, and

I will echo some of the same comments that Chief Westermann

said, our first and foremost priority and what we are there for is

to protect the public safety, and life safety is important. Your illustration of a motor vehicle accident, not only can we start to do initial stabilization of the patient if we need to, particularly in my organization and many throughout the fire service, we have advanced

life support capability; and as you know, airway management and

all those things are very important. At the same time, that engine

not only provides advanced life support, it also provides for a safer

scene with respect to if there is a car fire involved, hazardous materials. So it is a great fit from the standpoint of having the fire

service be involved in EMS and partnering with the then ambulance transport. Certainly we believe fire-based transport is the

way to streamline things.

Mr. GINGREY. Thank you, Chief, and Captain. Mr. Chairman, I

know my time has expired. I am going to come back to this in a

second round.

Chairman WU. We will come back to you fairly shortly. Mr.

Mitchell, you are recognized for five minutes.

Mr. MITCHELL. Thank you. I don’t really have a question but

kind of a response to Dr. Gingrey. In my area, in fact every fire

service in my district, the ambulance is contracted out. It is not

part of the fire service. So therefore there is not an ambulance at

every station. In fact, what happens is the firefighters are the ones

that are there fastest and the first responders, and the ambulance

pretty much does more than a taxi—but they don’t necessarily all

have paramedics on them as well. They have EMTs, but the fire

service is the one that has all the paramedics. So they are the first

responders, they are there first, and then the ambulance comes;

and that way, it has been cheaper because there is not an ambulance at every station. They are spread out much thinner and don’t

respond as fast. And that is just a comment. That is how it is in

my particular district. I yield back my time.

Chairman WU. Thank you, Mr. Mitchell. Dr. Gingrey, since you

are the Republican on that side and you seem to have some questions on this, we will come back to you; and then we will go to Ms.

Richardson.

Mr. GINGREY. Mr. Chairman, thank you, and I think some of the

other witnesses may want to comment on this. Mr. Mitchell, thank

you for your comments. It is a lot like that I think in my district

as well, and I haven’t thought about this in a while, so this is certainly a very timely week coming up and reauthorization and a

timely hearing. Here again, I want to make sure that on the scene

that there is a protocol. As Representative Mitchell pointed out, the

56

firemen respond first, they get there first; but of course, in every

community, the ambulance whose services are contracted with the

community, whether county, city, or region, have to respond in a

certain period of time, and pretty darn quickly I might add. And

let us say the fire department is there and they are fighting that

fire but somebody with the great training that Captain Livingston

talked about is trying to save a life but all of a sudden then he

looks around and there is a paramedic in an ambulance service, is

there handoff protocol? The paramedic on the ambulance certainly

is not going to be able to go in there and fight that fire, he is not

trained to do that. Is there a protocol so that we don’t waste our

talent, so to speak, at the scene?

Mr. WESTERMANN. I guess that is one of the niceties, the benefits, of having fire-based EMS in that both your ambulance personnel and the people fighting the fire are typically cross-trained

in the fire department, so they could trade off and have the distinct

protocols on handoffs such as what you mentioned.

Mr. LIVINGSTON. And I would just say, Chairman Wu, Ranking

Member Gingrey, yes, there are protocols, particularly in the example that you give. That is one of the things, and I think it was Administrator Cade that mentioned it. Since we are so good at the incident management system, it is the overall incident commander

that sets the goals and the priorities. And so in your illustration,

once again, life safety is always the number one priority for the fire

service, but they would also go through the incident command system so that not only are we using those resources efficiently but

we are maximizing the effectiveness of them. And so we do do that.

While there may be differences, it is the incident command system

which we utilize on a day-to-day basis that provides for that efficiency on that emergency scene.

Mr. GINGREY. I just want to make this comment, and then if others want to weigh in, you are there, you have that training, you

are trying to offer life support to someone that you pull from the

fire, but you may have six or eight or ten like in the South Carolina situation, or other situations, where your brothers at arms and

your firefighting partners are in there fighting a building, and of

course, their lives are at stake, too. So it is a matter of trying to

make sure as I point out. Would others like to comment on that?

Dr. HALL. First, a couple of facts. There is something like 20 million emergency responses by fire departments each year, and only

seven percent of them are fires. Something like 60 percent or more

are medical responses, and the percent, as well as the numbers,

keep going up every year. The Fire Service Needs Assessment that

I mentioned has a fairly recent reading on what fraction of fire departments offer EMS service, and the other witnesses are correct

that it is now the norm rather than the exception; and also information on what fraction of them have formal training for the people who are involved and what levels of certification they have, and

it varies all over the place. But as Captain Livingston has stated,

it all comes down in the end to incident management. You have got

to have a department which is the central manager of the event,

knowing the resources from other departments and its own that it

has to put into place, has protocols in place to sequence the tasks

and have things done in parallel and sequence as appropriate. So

57

I think most departments do that, and the trick is whether a group

like the U.S. Fire Administration through their training can make

sure that all departments do that.

Mr. GINGREY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think my time is expired, and Ms. Richardson has been very patient.

Chairman WU. Thank you, Dr. Gingrey, and with that, the

gentlelady from California, Ms. Richardson.

Ms. RICHARDSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman Wu, for having this

very helpful hearing that we have before us today. I am going to

start off first with a comment, and then I do have two questions.

Number one, I was a little surprised in all the testimony today that

there was very little reference to fire facilities, and I will tell you

that in my hometown, almost every fire facility that I have been

at, the fire stations themselves have been highly inadequate. First

in regard to gender: you have situations where firefighters are

forced to put a little bell on the door or some little sign that says

that there is a woman firefighter who is using the restroom or taking a shower; and clearly, we are going to have to deal with the

inadequate facilities that we have.

Second of all, I would like to speak to the poor infrastructure.

When you talk about crumbling bridges and so on, many of our fire

facilities have only been able to survive due to the innovative abilities of our firefighters to really fix them and keep them up to

speed. But I am extremely concerned for example that in my area,

the size of the bay doors, many of the new technology, the newer

and larger size trucks, that the equipment is not able to get in, not

able to get out. The location of the fire facilities in my area, we

have fire facilities that were originally put in there in the ’40s and

’50s. Now we are talking about very highly urban communities. So

physically to get out, to get onto these smaller streets and to get

onto the main highways to be able to get to people and care for

them is in high jeopardy. So I would like to see, before we come

forward with this reauthorization, more information of what we are

doing with the facilities. Specifically, what is your plan, what funding is going to be needed, and what funding are we talking about

in this budget that is going to address those issues? My second

point, Dr. Sunder, I was watching the news this morning as I was

getting ready for a 7:30 meeting, and they were talking about a fire

that occurred here in D.C. and something to the effect that the

pipes didn’t have enough water flow. So I would also like to see

come back to this committee additional information of what we

plan on doing to have adequate inspections of fire hydrants, pipes,

et cetera, so we are not waiting until there is a fire and we find

out we don’t have adequate flow. That should be something we

know ahead of time, and we should have a priority set of how we

are going to improve these various key pieces of infrastructure so

when we have a fire, we are going to be able to respond. And then

my final point is a question to Captain Livingston, and I am going

to run to a Transportation Committee meeting, so that is why if

the other two pieces of information could be supplied to this committee in writing.

Captain Livingston, I think to the core, we can talk about the

toys and all these wonderful things that we want to do, but I just

found it extremely alarming to hear you say that we need national

58

standards in order to reduce line-of-duty deaths; and I would like

to know from you specifically what are the obstacles precluding us

from establishing these standards, to your knowledge? That was a

mouthful from your youngest Member of Congress. Not youngest,

newest, I should say.

Mr. LIVINGSTON. Chairman Wu, Congresswoman Richardson, I

think what we need to do, like I mentioned in my testimony, is we

do not need to reinvent the wheel. We do have standards, and

concensus-based standards at that, that we largely go with. Unfortunately, not every state follows NFPA guidelines. You have a

mishmash of standards that are based at the local level. While I

believe law enforcement has minimum standards for law enforcement officers, here in the United States it is really at the local level

and the State level with respect to national standards. We strongly

believe that consensus standards, not reinventing the wheel, using

NFPA, whether it is firefighter one standards, company officer

standards, staffing standards, those kind of things will have a direct impact on the amount of lives we save in the fire service. We

think it is long overdue now in the 21st century that the fire service needs the Federal Government to take a lead role with respect

to that. The bottom-up role has not worked.

Ms. RICHARDSON. So then I think that would be leading to our

Administrator. Why have we failed to establish these standards?

Mr. CADE. Well, at the United States Fire Administration level,

we have been asked very recently to participate in the next generation of upgrades that the Occupational Safety and Health Administration is putting out. The OSHA standards, 1910156, are currently

out for updating, and part of the conversation that we are having

right now with OSHA from the USFA standpoint is the incorporation of the latest standards. The OSHA standards, as they are

today, were written 31 years ago, I believe. So they haven’t been

updated since then. Obviously there has been a lot of consensus

standards developed around firefighter safety, minimum standards

and certification that have been done. So OSHA has opened it back

up. Actually, September 11 was when it was published in the Federal Register. We have not submitted our comments yet, but we are

putting them together and will submit them for consideration by

OSHA. Hopefully what they are going to do is bring in the rest of

the national standards. That will at least give states and localities

something to specifically look at when they are trying to develop

standards; but even with that, there is still the opportunity at the

State level for them to either modify the OSHA standards or accept

them in whole, and it varies state by state and how that is done.

Ms. RICHARDSON. So could you provide to this committee your

timeline or how you would anticipate we would be able to address

this situation?

Mr. CADE. Yes, I will.

Ms. RICHARDSON. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman WU. I thank the gentlelady. And we go to a second

round of questions. The chair recognizes himself. Captain Livingston, I wanted to give you an opportunity to expand on your previous answer. It is my understanding that the number of fatalities

for firefighters this year has already reached the annual average,

and we have three more months to go. What are some of the things

59

we can do to reduce the fatality rate and what kind of leadership

role can USFA or any of the other agencies who are present can

they play to reduce this high fatality rate?

Mr. LIVINGSTON. Chairman Wu, I think what we need, and what

we do have, is an advocate in the USFA. They can be the point

agency within the Federal Government to not only start us on the

road of national standards but also to address some of the needs

that we have. I think Dr. Hall would reinforce this, I think if you

were to look over the last 30 years at the firefighter fatalities,

three common issues come to play. One, it was a lack of communication on the fire ground that occurred that led in some form or

fashion to that death. Two, there was a breakdown in the command

and control of the incident. And then three, simply staffing issues.

We try to do too much with too few personnel. And so I think those

three areas that I have discussed, as well as my written and oral

testimony going down the lines of some uniformity towards national standards, will certainly help with that. Along with the

standards, though, we need to emphasize training. You ask a lot

of the fire service, our nation asks a lot of the fire service. We need

to be able to be properly trained, and it is a challenge right now.

We need to find ways to have our people continue to be welltrained.

Chairman WU. Thank you. Dr. Hall.

Dr. HALL. The majority of firefighter on-duty deaths each year

don’t occur at the fire ground, and so if you were thinking of steps

that you particularly want to take, the common theme in well over

half of the firefighter deaths each year is either a heart attack or

some kind of vehicle handling error. Now, you can address both of

these through standards, through training, through a variety of

measures; but they aren’t the usual kind of we should have a new

type of equipment, we should have training in this kind of technical task. So what we have run into, as Captain Livingston has

said several times, is a lack of people adopting and complying with

the standards that already exist. In this country we don’t have nationally binding standards for the most part. We have gotten more

involved in this through OSHA as Chief Cade just said, and that

gives us certain opportunities; but for many other things, what we

have to do is persuade and recruit the fire departments, persuade

them of the importance, recruit them to following the standards,

and that is a much more painstaking task.

Chairman WU. Thank you very much. And Mr. Cade, what capabilities would your agency like to add to NFIRS and also in your

testimony you noted that the current system only captures about

half of the incidents that occur annually. What makes the reporting

system limited in this fashion and could you also address the complaints about timeliness that have been brought up today?

Mr. CADE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think fundamentally, one

of the issues with the National Incident Reporting System has just

been the time that it takes and the process going from a paper

process at some point. Someone has to enter that data into a computer system and doing that whole editing iteration. The data belongs to the local fire service and it also belongs to the state, so

it takes a little while for it to come through to us at the USFA and

the data center. As Congressman Gingrey directly points out, part

60

of the dilemma with making any of the changes that we are looking

at is trying to ensure that we don’t get caught up in the technology

end of things and that we forget the goal of what we are trying to

accomplish. And the goal for us is to be able to have the information available to the fire service to be able to make the decisions

that they need to make at the local level. Right now we do, I think,

a very good job of providing the long-term capability of doing the

data analysis for the studies. We do some very important work

with a lot of our partners. It is not just the national fire data that

we are using, we are using information from the Consumer Product

Safety Commission, the NFPA, there are a bunch of different arenas that are providing that information to us. We are trying to look

at making it a web-based system not so much so that we can get

that information to us alone faster, but also to be able to allow people to get in and search the data base and use it in an easier manner than what it is today. It is not user-friendly, and one of my

goals is to try to make it user-friendly for a fire chief.

Chairman WU. My time has expired, but Dr. Hall, I would expect

that you would have some comment on this also?

Dr. HALL. From the very beginning of NFIRS, we have never

been in a position where all the states were participating in

NFIRS, and the USFA really has no legal authority or strong

measures that it can use to compel states to participate. Few states

have all of their communities participating when the State participates, and some communities in some states go in and out of participation. So we are not in a position to be able to jump to a 100

percent census system, and I think it is helpful to compare us to

other systems out there. There are really only two countries in the

world that have anything remotely close to what we have in our

ability to track accurately and with some detail the fire experience,

and those are the United Kingdom and Japan. Canada used to, but

their system, which was about like ours, fell apart because of the

lack of close coordination at the national level.

Over at the FBI where they track crimes and participation is

mandatory, they still don’t get everything in and they don’t necessarily have a well-defined procedure for projecting from what

they do get to what they record. But the best example is probably

the death certificate database where it is completely mandatory,

everything comes in, and yet if you go in and find out what is the

latest data you have got available, you will quite often find that it

is older than the NFIRS data that is out. So a certain degree of

realism about what is achievable and also an awareness of what

the system is trying to do to get a representative but detailed sample that is a valid sample and to analyze it in valid ways and then

go on from those multiple objectives to what you can and what you

can’t accomplish with certain kinds of technology upgrades; that I

think is the way to go. And I know and deeply respect the professionals at the USFA who were in charge of NFIRS. I know that if

you give them a mandate to do the best job they can with the funds

available, you will get the best job that anyone can do.

Chairman WU. Thank you very much, Dr. Hall. The gentleman

from Georgia.

Mr. GINGREY. Mr. Chairman, thank you. With all of my Republican colleagues tied up at other hearings and markups, I am getVerDate 11-MAY-2000 11:08 Jan 20, 2008 Jkt 037985 PO 00000 Frm 00064 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 C:\WORKD\T&I07\100207\37985 SCIENCE1 PsN: SCIENCE1
61

ting this opportunity to be in a catbird seat. At the end of this

hearing, I am probably going to be the resident Republican expert

on fire issues now that Curt Weldon, my friend from Pennsylvania,

is no longer with us. So this is indeed, Mr. Chairman, a unique opportunity for me.

I want to go to what Chief Henderson in regard to the issue of

the residential sprinklers. And Chief, you mentioned my own county of Cobb’s requirement. And of course, Dr. Sunder, addressed just

a little bit about a recent study of the cost analysis of requiring

residential sprinkler systems. It is sort of like isn’t it the thinking

of the requirement of having seatbelts in our public school buses

in every seat, and we don’t have that by any stretch of the imagination. So I would like Chief Henderson for you to start, maybe Dr.

Sunder to weigh in, and the others if there is time remaining to

discuss this issue a little bit further, in regard to cost-effectiveness.

Mr. HENDERSON. With regards to cost per household of installing

a residential sprinkler system, and it would vary depending on the

state and depending on the labor cost and things. But I think in

Cobb County the cost is somewhere around, in a new structure

around $1 a square foot. And then to go back and retrofit it is

somewhere up to $5 a square foot, just to put those sprinkler systems in.

Mr. GINGREY. That would equate, Chief, to a $10,000 expense on

a 2,000 square foot home for retrofitting?

Mr. HENDERSON. For retrofitting.

Mr. GINGREY. A pretty expensive item for——

Mr. HENDERSON. Yes, sir. That is one problem that you always

have when you start talking about residential sprinklers is simply

because the mortgage lenders, contractors, insurance companies,

and people of another nature are the people that actually fight

those kind of laws. But when you look on the other hand, the lives

that are saved, I think nationwide and Dr. Sunder might be able

to give me a little help with the statistics, but I think nationwide

there is something like 80 percent fewer deaths in sprinkler areas.

Scottsdale, Arizona, I think, has one of the longest communities

that has had sprinkler systems. They have been in place for 20, 25

years, something like that. It would save the lives of the people in

the community, it would save lives of the firefighters, and there is

another problem with that, the rule of eminent domain. Just like

smoke detectors now, in the State of Georgia, we have a law that

requires everybody to have a smoke detector. You can actually fine

them $25 if they don’t have a smoke detector. The only problem is

no one can go in the house unless they have an emergency or unless they are invited in to check to see if they have got them. It

would be the same thing with residential sprinklers.

Mr. GINGREY. And a $25 fine is not taking much——

Mr. HENDERSON. No, not much. But, you know, that is a problem

when you pass those kinds of laws without looking at the rule of

eminent domain because that is that person’s house and you have

to be invited in or brought in in an emergency situation.

Mr. GINGREY. That is a great point. Dr. Sunder.

Dr. SUNDER. I would just like to make two separate points, one

regarding the benefit cost analysis with what we have done. We

have looked at three kinds of homes, colonial, townhouse, and

62

ranch homes, and we have looked at the installation of a minimum

kind of sprinkler system, bare bones with existing plumbing in new

construction. It is anywhere from about $1,000 to $2,000 roughly

speaking. The colonial is a little bit more expensive than let us say

a ranch. The benefits when you think about the fatalities averted,

the injuries averted, the uninsured property loss averted, indirect

costs averted and so forth, insurance credit, the benefits are about

$5,000 a piece for all of those kinds of houses. So the benefit-tocost in that situation is somewhere between $2,000 and $5,000,

somewhere in that order.

The other point of course is when you start putting more fancy

systems in place, the costs go up; and of course, retrofit is a whole

different proposition. That is always the biggest issue in anything

we do with building codes. Now, having said that, the question is

how do we get these changes into building codes? We have in our

country a system where it is a voluntary consensus system, and we

have a system where different interested parties weigh in on the

building code process, particularly at the national level you have

the International Code Council and NPFA that are model codes.

For this discussion, I will use ICC, the International Code Council

as an example. It is used in a number of the states nationwide, and

the democratic process you have there gets the private sector involved, the insurance involved, the home builders involved, and

then the fire service. It is always an issue of convincing, having

enough votes to get your proposal passed; and in the last cycle, in

fact I was there that time, they didn’t make it. There was a proposal to include residential fire sprinklers in, and they didn’t make

it. My guess is with these new studies and more conviction on the

cost issue, it might come to pass in the future.

Mr. GINGREY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman WU. Thank you, Dr. Gingrey, and there being no further questions from the panel present, before I bring the hearing

to a close, I would like to thank our witnesses for coming, in many

instances, long distances to testify in your very thoughtful testimony before the Subcommittee today. The record will remain open

for additional statements from the Members and for questions and

answers and any follow-up questions the Committee may ask of the

witnesses. The witnesses are now excused, and the hearing is adjourned.

[Whereupon, at 11:45 a.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]

(63)

Appendix 1:

ANSWERS TO POST-HEARING QUESTIONS

64

ANSWERS TO POST-HEARING QUESTIONS

Responses by Gregory B. Cade, Assistant Administrator, Federal Emergency Management Agency; U.S. Fire Administrator, United States Fire Administration, Department of Homeland Security

Questions submitted by Chairman David Wu

Q1. In your testimony you report that nearly all U.S. Fire Administration (USFA)

research activity happens through partnerships. How much funding comes directly from USFA for research? How many of those partnerships are formalized,

and through what means (i.e., with memorandums of understanding)? You also

mention in your testimony that nearly $17 million since FY 2005 has gone from

the Assistance to Firefighters grants program to research and development

grants. Who serves on the peer-review board of these applications?

A1. The United States Fire Administration (USFA) does not receive specific funding

dedicated solely to research activities. In recent years, however, approximately

$500,000 has been used on a variety of projects and studies designed to advance applied research and technology development.

The USFA establishes partnerships via Memorandums of Understanding and

Interagency Agreements with agencies such as the National Institute of Standards

and Technology (NIST) and the US Department of Justice’s (DOJ) National Institute of Justice (NIJ). Currently the partnership with NIST focuses on firefighting,

fire suppression, and fire life safety technology. With DOJ/NIJ, emergency responder emergency vehicle and roadway safety programs to benefit both firefighter

and law enforcement officer safety are the focus. Also, the USFA works with the

Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) on issues of citizen fire safety.

Other research partnerships with national level fire service organizations such as

the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA), International Association of Fire

Chiefs (IAFC), International Association of Fire Fighters (IAFF), National Volunteer

Fire Council (NVFC), and the International Fire Service Training Association

(IFSTA) are accomplished through Cooperative Agreements.

The Assistance to Firefighters Grants (AFG) program adheres to the requirements

that have been placed into the grants’ governing statute. The AFG program is administered through FEMA’s Grants Program Directorate, not through the USFA.

While USFA does not administer the program it does provide the space for peer reviews to be conducted at the National Emergency Training Center in Emmitsburg,

Maryland. With respect to the peer reviews, the program seeks to obtain panelists

who are knowledgeable, experienced, and a part of the fire service. A list of recommended panelists is obtained from National fire service organizations as well as

from institutions that carry out fire service related research and development. In

this manner the program is able to establish peer review panels—from the 20 individuals selected—that not only have expertise in research but also have an understanding of the needs of the fire service.

Q2. For the research activities USFA carries out through partnerships with the Department of Homeland Security’s Science and Technology Directorate (DHS

S&T), how does USFA communicate research priorities to the S&T Directorate?

Does the funding for these projects come from USFA or from DHS S&T?

A2. Both the United States Fire Administration (USFA) and the S&T Directorate

provide funding to programs identified through their participation in the S&T Directorate’s customer led Capstone Integrated Product Teams (IPTs). The IPTs are

charged with identifying functional capability requirements across the Department.

The products of these IPTs are used to identify components’ highest priority science

and technology needs and to allocate resources to those programs that support the

components’ and DHS’ priorities.

Q3. In your testimony you mention that USFA is working closely with Federal Emergency Management Association’s (FEMA) National Preparedness Directorate to

coordinate training to make sure NFA courses are in-line with the new National

Preparedness Guidelines and address elements of the Universal Task List and

the Target Capabilities List.

Q3a. Do these lists adequately address the needs of the fire service?

A3a. The United States Fire Administration (USFA) developed a crosswalk on how

classes taught at the National Fire Academy (NFA) address each of the various Target Capabilities, and we will assimilate other identified capabilities into new curricula as appropriate. The cross-walking of existing USFA programs and NFA

65

courses to the National Preparedness Guidelines (Guidelines) including the Universal Task List (UTL) and the Target Capability List (TCL), demonstrates a commitment to ensuring a culture of preparedness. The lists are broad enough to allow

for the needs of the fire service as it continues to evolve and adapt to emergent

issues. USFA continues to work close with FEMA’s National Preparedness Directorate, which currently manages the implementation of UTL and TCL. Both the

UTL and TCL adequately address the core competencies of today’s fire service and

the tenets of these documents are reflected in NFA courses.

Q3b. Will this collaboration detract from curriculum needs that are unique to the

fire service?

A3b. Adequate preparation for meeting the fire service’s day-to-day demands is also

the foundation for meeting the demands of an emergency related to terrorism.

Training to meet chemical/biological/radiological/nuclear threats is already part of

many fire departments’ skill set; responders may not know whether their incident

is terrorist-related until well into the response operations. Additional training requirements can strain fire department resources.

The collaboration and continued commitment to the Guidelines will not detract

from the unique curriculum needs of the fire service but instead allow USFA to

frame curriculum needs within the Guidelines and ensure an all hazards approach

to preparedness and response training, education, data collection and analysis, research involving civilian and fire service losses. Working with the Guidelines will

continue to benefit USFA in tailoring classes which will conform to the overarching

goals of the department and the needs of the fire service.

Q3c. What is the current balance at NFA between training related to typical structure and wild fires versus fires and emergencies related to terrorism or chemical/biological/radiological/nuclear threats?

A3c. Chemical/biological/radiological/nuclear threats have been part of fire departments’ response plans for decades; only the criminal or political element sets a terrorist incident apart. Since 1997, the NFA has added the terrorism element to its

training by weaving it into existing curricula where appropriate. Free-standing terrorism training courses were conducted in cooperation with our State partners and

have reached in excess of 270,000 emergency responders including firefighter, emergency medical, law enforcement, community leadership and public works personnel.

The current balance of structural firefighting operations versus wildfire versus

terrorism and fires involving hazardous materials events is NFA courses are predominately structural firefighting related. However, NFA has several wildfire

courses intended to educate structural firefighters and interface communities with

the unique conditions and decision process of wildland firefighting.

The USFA has a Hazardous Materials Program that has integrated terrorism

(CBRNE) response into the hazardous materials curriculum at all levels. By integrating the terrorism and hazardous materials training allows USFA to maintain

proper perspective while at the same time acknowledging the unique issues associated with incident initiation methodologies such as accidental, intentional, criminal,

and terrorism.

Courses at the NFA are reviewed regularly to assure they align with the National

Preparedness Guidelines and the needs of students.

Q4. In your testimony you state that ‘‘USFA strongly advocates for local fire departments to be the center of preparedness within their jurisdictions.’’ What types of

guidance does USFA offer to help them assume this role?

A4. Nationwide, citizens recognize their local fire departments will be among the

first responders to any significant incident. The public looks to its fire service for

guidance about preparedness for local community risks. Programs in which the fire

service already works as a center for preparedness include: fire prevention, hazardous materials awareness, child safety seat awareness and injury prevention programs. The United States Fire Administration (USFA), through the National Fire

Academy (National Fire Academy), delivers courses in community health risk management, risk management from an operational safety perspective, creating community risk-management partnerships, risk management through code enforcement

and strategic community risk reduction. To help reach the general public with preparedness messages, NFA offers nine resident and four handoff courses to those who

will be conducting public outreach. These handoff courses are courses which have

been developed by NFA for delivery from State Fire Training Offices across the

country to students who the NFA cannot service due to either space constraints at

NFA, or time constraints of the students. USFA also advocates for fire departments

to train other local emergency services organizations and hospitals on the use of the

66

National Incident Management System (NIMS). USFA is working with the National

Preparedness Directorate within FEMA to provide training and course material on

the NIMS to local fire departments to assist with training.

The USFA also develops and distributes a wide range of publications designed to

assist departments in the implementation of public education programs promoting

the fire prevention and preparedness message. In the future USFA will be working

with the Citizen Corps program, including the Community Emergency Response

Team (CERT) program. The CERT program deals heavily in citizen and community

preparedness as well as being an extension of response capabilities for fire departments. Currently there are many fire departments who provide the CERT training

to their citizens and serve as repositories of preparedness activities within their

community.

Q5a. How does USFA evaluate its public education and awareness programs?

A5a. The United States Fire Administration (USFA) uses a variety of ways to

evaluate its public education and awareness programs. They include tracking the

reach of campaign efforts through monitoring and reporting on the use of press releases, spokesperson interviews, public service ads, and USFA references in the

news. We monitor and track the materials distributed to fire departments and partners through a contract and track both ‘‘hits’’ on the USFA website as well as orders

sent through the USFA publications center.

USFA is always open to suggestions regarding messaging and materials whether

it comes from a citizen or a professional fire organization. Often changes or the development of new approaches come from these valuable comments and suggestions.

USFA currently contracts with a Washington, DC-based firm to develop a pilot

qualitative evaluation tool to be used in the future to gain more insight into the

value of USFA public education and awareness activities. This contract is in place

for a one-year startup and results should be available by the summer of 2008.

When the goal of a message is to motivate a behavior change in a target group,

how does USFA work to develop that message and evaluate its impact?

Q5b. When the goal of a message is to motivate a behavior change in a target group,

how does USFA work to develop that message and evaluate its impact?

A5b. Engaging Partners

At the start of the process, USFA engages partners and Fire Service leaders in

the content development, design and packaging of materials. Their participation, especially in the early stages of campaign or material development process, ensures

that we:

• Gain insight from Fire Service leaders and other partners to clarify the target

audience and behaviors we are seeking to promote through the educational

materials.

• Include relevant questions in any primary research—quantitative or qualitative—that might be undertaken.

• Inform partners, potential partners and allies of plans for fire safety and prevention education materials and gain their insight into the target audience.

• Include educational materials in plans for distribution through channels that

are credible to the target audience.

• Identify images, colors and phrases that capture the attention of the target

audience(s).

Target Audience Testing

Testing campaign concepts and materials with the intended audience(s) is necessary to ensure that the campaign will actually reach at-risk audiences with messages that motivate a change in behavior. This testing can include focus group research, structured one-on-one interviews with individuals that represent the target

audience or have experience in reaching the audiences, and formal technical and advisory panels.

Critical testing questions include:

• Are the campaign concept and message(s) believable?

• Are they relevant to the audience? What would make them relevant?

• Are they credible? What would make them credible?

• Does the message motivate the audience to overcome barriers to action?

• Are the proposed communication channels effective in reaching the audience?

67

• Are the draft educational materials effective? Will the target audience use

them?

Through a contract with a DC-based firm, USFA conducts readability tests to

make certain that the literacy levels of the materials are appropriate to the audience.

Q5c. What types of partnerships does USFA draw on to develop it public education

material?

A5c. USFA works through a variety of means to develop and draw on other organizations in the development of its public education materials. Types of partnerships

include Memorandums of Understanding, Interagency Agreements, Contracts,

Grants and so forth. These partnerships range from formal contracts to informal

discussions with other safety organizations such as the American Red Cross, the

National Fire Protection Association (NFPA), the Home Safety Council, American

Academy of Pediatrics, SAFE KIDS Worldwide, ZERO to THREE, the National Volunteer Fire Council, Indian Health Service, Department of Housing and Urban Development, International Fire Chiefs Association, Residential Fire Sprinkler Institute, and local fire departments. USFA utilizes research results obtained from work

with the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) for some of the content in the public education materials from these organizations.

Q5d. To what extent has USFA engaged with social scientists to research, develop,

and implement effective fire prevention and safety messages?

A5d. The firm currently under contract with USFA specializes in ‘‘social marketing’’

in the areas of health and safety. With their able assistance, USFA frequently

consults with social scientists that specialize in the areas of psychology, psychiatry,

and sociology. These experts are consulted for the purpose of advice on targeting

messages to particular at-risk audiences in order to develop materials that are more

effective when working with specific high risk groups such as children, older adults

and others. In addition, we request advice on methodologies and outreach activities

in order to best deliver the educational information at the local level to the particular audiences targeted.

In the past, USFA delivered several grants to colleges/universities to conduct research with targeted population groups. The results of these grants were incorporated into decision-making where appropriate.

For the past seven years, USFA has been working in conjunction with the Centers

for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Through this partnership, work has been

conducted on the National Fire Risk Survey and Behavioral Risk Factor Survey to

gain insight into human behavior during a home fire. To date, the results have not

been reported, but should be available within the coming year.

The National Fire Risk Survey is an on-going surveillance of fire-related behavior

and risk/protective factors. A telephone survey will be designed and conducted to

collect national-level population-based data on:

• Knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors

• Population-based numbers of fires, the number put out by sprinklers, the

number put out by homeowners in response to smoke alarms, and the number

of fires responded to by fire departments

• Placement, number, and functionality of smoke alarms and frequency of testing

• Presence of sprinklers

• Fire-related injuries that are not seen in Emergency Departments or hospitals

• Primary prevention risk and protective factors (e.g., inappropriate use of

space heaters, use of childproof lighters)

• Fire-related injuries and deaths linked to disabilities

Behavioral Risk Factor Survey (state-based risk/protective factor surveillance)

(CDC). Additional questions were added to CDC’s Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) 2003 survey to collect State-level data on the following variables. Two questions were added to the emerging core and five questions were included in an optional module.

• Placement, number, and functionality of smoke alarms in the home

• Type of smoke alarms (e.g., lithium battery-powered, nine-volt battery, hardwired)

• Frequency of testing of smoke alarms

• Escape planning and practice

68

In addition, USFA is a member of the National Fire Safety Public Private Council

which is a cooperative effort between several federal agencies including the CDC,

Consumer Product Safety Council, the National Fire Protection Association and approximately 15 other federal agencies and private national organizations that are

concerned with fire safety. This organization manages the web site, http://

www.firesafety.gov.

Q6. In addition to working with federal agencies like the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to create curricula to train local firefighters to fight fires in the

wildland-urban interface, is USFA engaged in fostering the working relationship

between local fire department and the federal agencies that handle wildland

fires?

A6. The United States Fire Administration (USFA) has a strong working relationship with the wildland fire community to coordinate with various federal, State, and

local agencies on a wide variety of public education, training, mitigation, and response initiatives as well as policy issues that contribute to the reduction of

wildland fires and their impact on the American public. Programs are designed, developed, and implemented to provide education and awareness to the general public

and local officials with a basic understanding of appropriate wildland urban interface fire prevention and mitigation initiatives for the home and the community at

large. Firefighting objectives, strategies, tactics and tasks in the wildland environment differ from those in the structural fire protection community, so cross training

these entities is an important part of community preparedness.

USFA is represented on the Wildland Fire Leadership Council (WFLC) which is

a senior-level body that provides policy-level coordination between the Department

of Interior, Department of Agriculture Forest Service, State Foresters, Fish and

Wildlife Service, National Park Service, Bureau of Indian Affairs, National Weather

Service and USFA. These agencies work together to coordinate and support

wildland fire and disaster operations. USFA is a member of the newly constituted

Fire Executive Council, a senior executive level body comprised of members from the

Department of Interior Bureau’s with wildland fire responsibility. USFA has a fulltime staff member assigned at the National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC). USFA

is a permanent member on the National Multi-Agency Coordination Group (NMAC)

which provides geographic area priorities, coordination for national shared resources, shortage area resource needs, incident operations coordination and preparation for fire season operations. USFA serves as the link to local government fire

service issues and resolution at NIFC. USFA serves on several National Wildfire Coordinating Groups (NWCG) Parent Group and Working Teams including Training,

Fire Investigation, and Wildland/Urban Interface.

USFA has underway a Training Equivalency/Crosswalk initiative with the consolidation of specific NWCG course units. The purpose is to identify gaps in standard structural fire training programs to help firefighters become competent in

wildland fire operations. The goal of the project is to improve training options available to firefighters by recommending a standardized crosswalk of equivalency training or potential reciprocity between existing training provided to structural and

wildland firefighters.

Through a partnership with USFA and the Forest Service, a Wildland/Urban

Interface 3D Simulation tool has been developed. It is being delivered to support

simulation training for the Wildland/Urban interface problem as evidenced by the

recent Southern California Fire Siege. This training simulation provides a physically realistic fire propagation model based on fuel types, various environmental

conditions, and topography. Participants have the ability to request resources and

simulate building fire lines to hinder and stop the propagation of the fire. Instructors have the ability to alter the environmental conditions that in turn affect the

behavior of the fire.

The overall goal of the USFA All-Hazard Incident Management Team (Type 3)

(AHIMT) Technical Assistance program is to develop all-hazard state, metropolitan

and regional Incident Management Teams (IMTs) to better prepare local communities with the capability to manage large scale and complex emergency incidents,

including local incidents with national implications. The AHIMT can support either

an existing Incident Command System (ICS) structure or can assume command of

an incident if requested and so delegated. A component of the program includes field

training opportunities. The knowledge disseminated through the training has been

applied successfully at several events including Hurricanes Katrina, Rita, and

Wilma; floods, wildland fires, and law enforcement incidents.

In the wildland fire community, the Forest Service and the NWCG recognize five

‘‘Types,’’ or levels, of IMTs. USFA has stayed with this model for the all-hazards

emergency response community. The IMT types are:

69

Type 5—Local command and general staff formed at a major/complex incident.

Type 4—Regional or local, single or multi-agency team for expanded incidents

Type 3—State or Regional multi-agency/multi-jurisdiction team for extended incidents

Type 2—National or State team for incidents of regional significance

Type 1—National or State team for incidents of national significance

Several USFA AHIMT Type 3 teams have had opportunities to work directly with

the National Type 1 and 2 teams on various incidents of national significance. Based

on real world experience gained through application, the training has been revised

to ensure that it will continue to provide the necessary tools for individuals to perform as members of a Type 3 IMT.

Q7. Captain Livingston, representing the International Association of Fire Fighters,

testified that USFA should be encouraging local fire departments to adopt national safety standards. What is USFA doing to facilitate and encourage State

and local fire agencies to adopt voluntary consensus standards like NFPA 1500?

What other measures is USFA taking to decrease the number of line of duty

deaths in the fire service?

A7. The United States Fire Administration (USFA) participates on the DHS Science

and Technology Standards Council and has worked with the Council to adopt twenty-five NFPA standards including NFPA 1500. The Assistance to Firefighters Grant

Program (AFG), administered by FEMA’s Grants Program Directorate, uses the

adopted standards to set targets and goals for recipients of AFG grants. Grant applicants are asked to articulate how an award will get them closer to meeting a

standard relevant to the type of grant they are requesting.

USFA has initiated a multitude of studies and project efforts to reduce firefighter

on-duty deaths including those in health and wellness, dealing with the leading

cause of on duty fatalities—heart attack and stress; in emergency vehicle safety

aimed to reduce the second leading cause of such fatalities—crashes. Further, USFA

has projects dealing with firefighting technology to enhance firefighter operational

safety on the fireground, including Thermal Imaging Cameras, Firefighter Simulation Training, and other areas. Finally, USFA’s firefighter health and safety studies

encourage fire service compliance with relevant NFPA health and safety standards,

such as NFPA 1500.

In cooperation with the National Fallen Firefighters Foundation, the International Association of Fire Chiefs, the International Association of Fire Fighters,

the National Volunteer Fire Council and many others, the USFA has championed

the national ‘‘Everybody Goes Home’’ campaign for firefighter safety and health

(which is built from the NFPA 1500 standards). Every student who attends a NFA

course receives a copy of these 16 initiatives on a CD for use when they return

home. Across the National Fire Academy’s curricula, where appropriate, consensus

standards are referenced and discussed. Since 1988 (with periodic updates) the NFA

has been conducting courses specifically focusing on reducing line of duty deaths.

Q8. What process does USFA use to develop new curriculum for the National Fire

Academy? After major events, like Hurricane Katrina, how does USFA incorporate ‘‘lessons learned’’ into new courses?

A8. The United States Fire Administration (USFA) employs a formal ‘‘Curriculum

Management System’’ that relies on constituent input into curriculum planning and

development. USFA maintains strong State and local partnerships to assist these

organizations in their training by identifying programs that complement and supplement State and local training, and not replicate their efforts. This partnership with

State and local organizations through the years has produced programs such as

State Delivery, Train-the-Trainer, In-Service Training, State Weekend Programs,

Volunteer Incentive Program (VIP), Training Resources and Data Exchange

(TRADE), Regional Delivery, and Degrees at a Distance Program (DDP).

USFA uses the TRADE network to identify training needs regionally; USFA also

meets periodically with national organizations such as the North American Fire

Training Directors (NAFTD), International Association of Fire Chiefs (IAFC) Professional Development Committee, the National Volunteer Fire Council (NVFC), and

other organizations to plan delivery and development needs. In addition, USFA has

developed one of the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA’s) most comprehensive formal training evaluation systems. Information, feedback, and cues

from a variety of internal and external sources are used in curriculum planning and

in fine-tuning courses. Sources include post-course and long-term evaluations, information from Superintendent’s luncheons, the Superintendent’s annual input/exVerDate 11-MAY-2000 11:08 Jan 20, 2008 Jkt 037985 PO 00000 Frm 00073 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6621 C:\WORKD\T&I07\100207\37985 SCIENCE1 PsN: SCIENCE1
70

change at the IAFC conference, contract instructor debriefings, reports from curriculum meetings, and written and verbal input from thousands of users, supporters, and partners.

Key to USFA’s curriculum management approach is staff expertise and responsibility. USFA uses a team approach to needs assessment, curriculum planning,

course development, course delivery, and course handoff. Training Specialists, the

Instructional Systems Specialists, the Program Specialists, the Field Managers, the

Program Managers, Program Support Assistants and Secretaries, and all members

of the management team contribute their skills and expertise to the management

of the curriculum. An essential part of their daily responsibilities is to ‘‘scan the environment’’ for important issues and lessons learned that will be incorporated into

course work.

Q9. Please describe how USFA’s planned update for the National Fire Incident Reporting System (NFIRS) will facilitate faster reporting, increased participation,

and increased accessibility. What measures will be taken to ensure that the quality of the database is not compromised? Since fire losses in the U.S. are still the

highest in the developed world, is the information drawn from the data being

effectively applied? What more can be done to ensure that the data drawn from

these past incidents is put into practice?

A9. Fire departments that choose to use a NFIRS Web browser based reporting tool

will no longer need to download, install, and configure client software. The anticipated result will be a faster and easier initial reporting experience. Small departments without technically experienced personnel that may have found it daunting

to participate in NFIRS due to technical or financial barriers can begin reporting

immediately as long as they have access to a PC, Internet connection and standard

browser.

USFA currently collects NFIRS data on-line via the Internet using a client-based

data collection software tool. All data that is currently reported on-line directly into

the national NFIRS server is first validated before entry into the database using

a tool that tests against the standard NFIRS 5.0 data edits and validation rules.

These same data validation routines will be run on data reported through the new

Web based application.

Fire losses in the U.S. are no longer the highest in the industrialized world. According to 2007 World Fire Statistics Center statistics, among industrialized nations, the U.S. ranks 18th in direct fire losses as a percentage of national GDP and

7th in fire death rate. Trends in fires, civilian fire deaths, and civilian fire injuries

have been steadily declining over the past three decades, thus indicating the data

are being effectively applied to the fire problem to reduce losses. The data compiled

from NFIRS will continue to be used to inform fire prevention programs so as to

ensure trend audiences are being attended to (such as the elderly and young). By

combining the fire prevention and fire data responsibilities, USFA will be better

able to respond to the needs of those at risk.

USFA and other organizations such as the Consumer Product Safety Commission

(CPSC) and the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) continuously analyze

the collected NFIRS data to identify emerging fire trends. Additionally, USFA,

states, local governments and others uses these data to target prevention and mitigation programs toward high risk groups to aid in reducing the fire problem.

Q10. Is USFA involved in activities to aid local communities in evaluating optimal

fire and emergency services asset management and distribution to achieve the

greatest level of community protection, especially in disaster situations that

strain resources?

A10. The United States Fire Administration (USFA) prepares local departments to

prioritize and establish their own level of community protection. USFA efforts include publications, projects, classes, training, conferences, seminars, symposia and

other events.

The USFA provides a series of training classes to the fire and emergency services

that support and provide information for community protection. Almost all of the

64 plus residential courses USFA, through the National Fire Academy (NFA), provide support to planning for every day events as well as natural and man made disasters. The NFA also conducts courses in community risk management, long-term

planning and emergency command and control that focus on extremely large and

complex incidents involving multiple agencies.

71

1The Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act, 2007 gave the Office of Emergency Communications (OEC) the responsibility to administer certain elements of the

SAFECOM program. SAFECOM’s authorities related to research, development, testing, evaluation, and standards will remain in the Office for Inter-operability and Compatibility (OIC) within the Science and Technology Directorate. Under its authorities, OIC is working with the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to support the efforts of the emergency response community and industry to accelerate the development of the Project 25 (P25) suite of

standards.

Questions submitted by Representative Phil Gingrey

Q1. In Captain Livingston’s testimony, he calls on USFA to be more proactive in

supporting inter-operable standards from Project 25 and training and operations standards from NFPA. What activities has USFA undertaken to support

wider availability and adoption of inter-operable communications technology?

What ability does USFA have to influence the adoption of both sets of standards?

A1. The United States Fire Administration (USFA), supported by S&T Directorate

SAFECOM1 funding, initiated a fire service communications study that is still underway and will be used to update an aged USFA Fire Department Communications

manual. When complete, the updated document will provide information to the fire

service educating and encouraging them on the use of inter-operable communications. USFA was also supported by SAFECOM for educational programs on communications operability at a national fire service conference. Through these efforts, additional fire service members would be better informed about adoption of inter-operable communications technology.

The USFA does not have any legislative or legal authority to influence the adoption of any standards.

Q2. USFA trains significantly more people through State and local partnerships

than through the facilities at Emmitsburg. How does NFA design courses for

presentation outside of Emmitsburg? What requirements does USFA place on

groups seeking to provide NFA-approved courses?

A2. The Unites States Fire Administration (USFA), through the National Fire

Academy (NFA) offers two-day courses are well suited for weekend delivery to the

Nation’s volunteer firefighters. When any new course is being developed, the NFA

considers the possibility of assembling some modules into another coherent (but

shorter) course. Modules (depending upon the course) are a few hours in length, convenient to evening hours training.

Unless they require special facilities such as laboratories, burn buildings or

graphics equipment, well-designed courses can be presented anywhere. NFA has

conducted many of the resident courses at host facilities around the Nation.

Groups seeking to deliver a NFA course must coordinate delivery through the appropriate State fire service training agency to ensure quality is maintained, the students are properly registered and they receive credit whatever qualifications successful completion of the course provides. In some cases, the delivery is funded by

the State or the host agency.

Questions submitted by Representative Judy Biggert

Q1. Why have many local fire departments not adopted national standards that

would reduce the number of firefighter line of duty deaths? Are their specific

barriers that hinder the adoption of these standards?

A1. The major specific barrier to adoption of such standards is cost. There are numerous fire departments in the United States that do not have adequate resources

to do adapt and implement such standards. The United States Fire Administrations

(USFA’s) A Second Needs Assessment of the Fire Service illustrates numerous examples of fire departments having inadequate protective equipment and not possessing

required training to meet such standards and, in some cases, fire departments having no protective equipment at all. The Assistance to Firefighter Grants (AFG) program which is run by FEMA’s Grants Program Directorate has been assisting in

getting money to departments to meet baseline needs. This program only assists in

providing the baseline amount of equipment to departments and is not a

sustainment program, which means eventually, departments will have to secure

funding to replace or repair items bought under the AFG.

Another hindrance is the time requirements for firefighters to complete training

and meet the standards. In the volunteer fire service the challenge may be a regular

72

paying job and family demands; while in the career fire service, it may be the inability to place companies out of service while firefighters participate in training or the

cost of overtime to conduct training outside regular hours.

Q2. Does USFA provide any guidance with regard to maintenance and upgrade of

the infrastructure of local fire facilities to ensure that they remain adequate as

firefighting technology and personnel change over time?

A2. United States Fire Administration (USFA) staff serve as liaisons to National

Fire Protection Association (NFPA) Occupational Safety and Health technical committees responsible for the development of consensus standards relating to fire station facilities design and personnel safety. These standards have identified specific

areas regarding personal training areas, decontamination capabilities, sanitation

and air quality, fire resistant design and alerting, sleeping quarters, and apparatus

size and design. In addition, the standards also address care, maintenance, and storage of personal protective clothing and equipment. As firefighting technologies

evolve, the standards are revised to address these areas that are primary to firefighter health and safety. Additionally, USFA tracks and identifies firefighter occupational health and injury statistics that are utilized in the committee process for

standard revision. USFA staff also uses that information for curriculum updates and

revisions.

USFA works closely with the DHS National Operations Center (NOC), National

Infrastructure Coordination Center (NICC), Office of Intelligence & Analysis (IA),

Office of Infrastructure Protection (IP), Infrastructure Partnerships Division (IPD),

Chemical & Nuclear Preparedness & Protection Division (CNPPD), and USFA’s own

Emergency Management and Response—Information Sharing and Analysis Center

(EMR–ISAC) to provide timely information directly to the Nation’s fire and emergency services in order to protect the personnel, facilities, and communications resources of each agency from natural, manmade and technological disasters. In keeping with its role in information sharing, the USFA EMR–ISAC is a key participant

in the Homeland Security Information Network (HSIN) working group that was convened to establish an Emergency Services Sector (ESS) portal. This portal will serve

as another mechanism in which critical information may be shared, chronicled, and

warehoused for the ESS.

USFA is an approved member serving on the InterAgency Board for Equipment

Standardization and Inter-operability (IAB). The mission of the IAB is to establish

and coordinate local, State, and federal standardization, inter-operability, compatibility, and responder health and safety to prepare for, train and respond to, mitigate, and recover from any incident by identifying requirements for an all-hazards

incident response with a special emphasis on Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear or Explosive (CBRNE) issues.

The Assistance to Firefighters Grant (AFG) Program, managed by FEMA’s Grants

Program Directorate awards grants to fire departments to enhance their ability to

protect the public and fire service personnel from fire and related hazards. There

are three types of grants available: Assistance to Firefighters Grants (AFG), Fire

Prevention and Safety (FP&S), and Staffing for Adequate Fire and Emergency Response (SAFER). Additional information is available at www.firegrantssupport.com.

Each of these grant programs assists local fire departments in meeting their preparedness goals.

In training, these topics are included in the budget, planning, risk management

and command courses. ‘‘Best practices’’ are also highlighted and discussed.

USFA has developed a document Safety and Health Considerations for the Design

of Fire and Emergency Medical Services Stations that provides guidance on the design or remodeling of fire and emergency medical services stations and other facilities in terms of safety and health concerns of personnel who must work and live

in those facilities.

73

ANSWERS TO POST-HEARING QUESTIONS

Responses by Sivaraj Shyam Sunder, Director, Building and Fire Research Laboratory, National Institute of Standards and Technology, Department of Commerce

Questions submitted by Chairman David Wu

Q1. How does NIST facilitate technology transfer of successful research results into

products and practices for the fire service community? Do any R&D efforts relate

to lowering the cost of equipment for fire departments? How does NIST measure

impact of its fire R&D efforts on fire prevention, firefighting, and fire recovery?

A1. There are multiple means that NIST uses to facilitate technology transfer of

our R&D results to the fire service community:

• presentations of research results at national conferences on firefighting technologies, including:

Æ the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) Annual World Safety

Conference and Expo,

Æ the International Association of Fire Fighters (IAFF) Redmond Symposium,

Æ the annual conference of the International Association of Fire Chiefs

(IAFC),

Æ the annual Conference of Fire Safety Instructors, and

Æ conferences of the International Association of Arson Investigators

(IAAI);

• organizing workshops and special seminars with the fire service community

aimed at planning research and disseminating the results;

• serving on fire standards committees of NFPA, Underwriters laboratory (UL),

and ASTM;

• serving on the Science Advisory Committee of the National Association of

State Fire Marshals;

• having a NIST staff member from Gaithersburg spend one day a week in Emmitsburg at the National Fire Academy (NFA) to help plan and coordinate research programs;

• working with the NFA to incorporate the results of the research into the curriculum, and participating in the actual instruction;

• publishing an on-line newsletter, FIRE.GOV, in partnership with the United

States Fire Administration (USFA) that contains easy to read articles specifically aimed at the fire services and describes ongoing research activities

around the world;

• issuing reports, CDs, DVDs, and publishing articles in the archived literature,

and making these available through our web site.

• supporting pre-competitive SBIR research on promising new fire service technologies.

Our research affects the cost of firefighting equipment in two ways. First, by advancing measurement and predictive methods for the way fires spread, we are able

to better determine the impact of a fire mitigating strategy, and to work with standards developing organizations to incorporate standards that are based upon meaningful performance metrics and provide a uniform playing field for competing technologies and manufacturers. By promoting performance-based standards for firefighting equipment, NIST enables the private sector to innovate and compete, often

at reduced costs, while ensuring a satisfactory level of safety. Science-based performance metrics for these technologies also serve to protect the investment of local

communities. Recent examples of standards improved by or based upon NIST research include thermal imaging cameras, turn-out gear, and positive pressure ventilation systems.

The second way that NIST research affects equipment costs is through the Building and Fire Research Laboratory’s Office of Applied Economics, which conducts economic analyses and develops decision tools to assist local communities in deciding

among multiple strategies or technologies in which to invest.

NIST R&D is geared toward fire prevention and firefighting technologies; no research is currently underway in fire recovery. The impact of the NIST fire R&D effort is demonstrated in several ways:

74

• improvements to standards for fire detection, fire suppression, and flammability of materials (for example, the newly adopted test methods for mattress

flammability and for reduced ignition-prone cigarettes.)

• improvements to computer simulation tools for predicting how fires spread

within a building, from building to building, and the wildland-urban interface

from wildlands to buildings.

• fire service standards developed or modified, and technologies marketed by

the private sector that were enabled by NIST research.

• improved practices adopted by the fire services.

• requests for NIST information by the fire services (CDs, videos, reports) and

invitations to speak at local, national and international meetings with substantial fire service involvement.

• new/modified courses taught by the National Fire Academy based upon NIST

R&D.

Q2. How has NIST’s work on fires at the wildland-urban interface been transferred

to either policy or technology to mitigate structures in these areas?

A2. NIST, with funds provided by Congress in FY 2007 as part of the American

Competitiveness Initiative, has recently ramped up its research into fires at the

wildland-urban interface, with the objective of developing tools for reducing community losses in wildland-urban interface fires. These tools will assist communities in

their fire risk assessment and choice of economically balanced mitigation strategies

that limit the ignition of residences and improve firefighter and community safety.

In past work supported by the Pacific Southwest Research Station (PSW) of the Forest Service under the interagency National Fire Plan, NIST provided the heat transfer model to ecoSmart-FIRE which is the fire component of ecoSmart. ecoSmart is

a web based tool for helping homeowners choose landscaping options that are more

fire safe and evaluates the economic trade of the options. Funding from NIST to the

University of Florida and the Southern Research Station of the Forest Service supported flammability measurements of commonly used ornamental vegetation. Ratings of the vegetation have been made publicly available. Another economic tool is

currently being developed that will be spatially-explicit, allowing communities to

tailor and target cost-effective wildfire mitigation solutions to their geographic area

of concern.

NIST research is beginning to fill in the major scientific gaps necessary to allow

a transformation to performance-based codes and standards for building and protecting communities at the edge of wildlands. We are making progress in our understanding of the role of fire brands, produced by both burning vegetation and structures, in spreading the fire. A wildland-urban interface fire behavior computer model

is under development. Unlike wildland fire models this model will include the structural fuels which differ significantly from wildland fuels in their ignition and burning characteristics. We are following the standards work being done in California

regarding the proper design of roof and eave vents to prevent entrance by fire

brands, and are currently on the ground in southern California to better understand

the fire behavior and the influence of the housing and community layout on the extent of damage encountered.

NIST is actively participating with organizations that influence policy and building codes. NIST staff serves on:

• the National Blue Ribbon Panel on the Wildland-Urban Interface for the

International Code Council (ICC);

• the Subcommittee on Disaster Reduction of Wildland Fires to the Committee

on Environment and Natural Resources of the President’s National Science

and Technology Council, as co-chairs;

• the ArcView Review Technical Panel for National Fire Protection Association’s FIREWISE Program,

• the U.S. Forest Service Fuel Characteristic Classification System National

Review Panel, and

• the NFPA Forest and Rural Fire Protection Standards Committee.

Q3. In fiscal year 2007, how much funding did the USFA contribute to NIST firerelated research activities? How has this amount changed since FY 2004?

A3. Because of recent and multiple reorganizations of USFA within the Department

of Homeland Security, an accounting of the exact source of fire research funding

from the USFA is not easily collected. With that caveat, in FY 2007 NIST received

$494K directly traceable to the FEMA/NETC Acquisition Section, Emmitsburg, MD.

75

This compares to $450K in FY 2004. Please note that the National Emergency

Training Center was under USFA in FY 2004, but currently is under FEMA.

Question submitted by Representative Jim Matheson

Q1. In Dr. Sunder’s testimony, there was reference to tools that NIST has created

to help communities assess fire risk and make economically-balanced choices in

fighting fires in the wildland-urban interface. What are some of these tools and

what strategies are communities using to protect themselves from this type of

fire?

A1. NIST, with funds provided by Congress in FY 2007 as part of the American

Competitiveness Initiative, has recently ramped up its research into fires at the

wildland-urban interface, with the objective of developing tools for reducing community losses in wildland-urban interface fires. These tools will assist communities in

their fire risk assessment and choice of economically balanced mitigation strategies

that limit the ignition of residences and improve firefighter and community safety.

In past work supported by the Pacific Southwest Research Station (PSW) of the Forest Service under the interagency National Fire Plan, NIST provided the heat transfer model to ecoSmart-FIRE which is the fire component of ecoSmart. ecoSmart is

a web based tool for helping homeowners choose landscaping options that are more

fire safe and evaluates the economic trade of the options. Funding from NIST to the

University of Florida and the Southern Research Station of the Forest Service supported flammability measurements of commonly used ornamental vegetation. Ratings of the vegetation have been made publicly available Another economic tool is

currently being developed that will be spatially-explicit, allowing communities to

tailor and target cost-effective wildfire mitigation solutions to their geographic area

of concern.

NIST research is beginning to fill in the major scientific gaps necessary to allow

a transformation to performance-based codes and standards for building and protecting communities at the edge of wildlands. We are making progress in our understanding of the role of fire brands, produced by both burning vegetation and structures, in spreading the fire. A wildland-urban interface fire behavior computer model

is under development. Unlike wildland fire models this model will include the structural fuels which differ significantly from wildland fuels in their ignition and burning characteristics. We are following the standards work being done in California

regarding the proper design of roof and eave vents to prevent entrance by fire

brands, and are currently on the ground in southern California to better understand

the fire behavior and the influence of the housing and community layout on the extent of damage encountered.

NIST is actively participating with organizations that influence policy and building codes. NIST staff serves on:

• the National Blue Ribbon Panel on the Wildland-Urban Interface for the

International Code Council (ICC);

• the Subcommittee on Disaster Reduction of Wildland Fires to the Committee

on Environment and Natural Resources of the President’s National Science

and Technology Council, as co-chairs;

• the ArcView Review Technical Panel for National Fire Protection Association’s FIREWISE Program,

• the U.S. Forest Service Fuel Characteristic Classification System National

Review Panel, and the NFPA Forest and Rural Fire Protection Standards

Committee.

Question submitted by Representative Laura Richardson

Q1. Is there a need for standards to ensure that all fire hydrants operate when they

are needed in an emergency? Please provide whatever information NIST can related to this subject.

A1. The maintenance and inspection of fire hydrants is a State and local issue. The

National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) provides standards and guidance which

State and local jurisdictions may choose to adopt to ensure the proper operation of

the fire hydrant and the adequacy of the water supply.

NFPA 1, Uniform Fire CodeΤΜ (section 18.3) describes the general requirements

for water supplies and hydrants. ‘‘An approved water supply capable of supplying

the required fire flow for fire protection shall be provided to all premises upon which

facilities, buildings, or portions of buildings are hereafter constructed or moved into

76

the jurisdiction. . .. The number and type of fire hydrants and connections to other

approved water supplies shall be capable of delivering the required fire flow and

shall be provided at approved locations.’’ Annex H of NFPA 1 provides guidance for

determining the required fire flow, and Annex I of NFPA 1 provides guidance for

determining the number and location of fire hydrants.

NFPA 25, Standard for the Inspection, Testing, and Maintenance of Water-Based

Fire Protection Systems, generally applies more to private fire protection systems

but has requirements related to inspecting, maintaining, and testing hydrants. Section 7.3.2 of NFPA 25 states that hydrants shall be tested annually to ensure proper

functioning, that each hydrant shall be opened fully and water flowed until all foreign material has cleared, and that the flow shall be maintained for not less than

one minute.

NFPA 291, Recommended Practice for Fire Flow Testing and Marking of Hydrants, is used for guidance in the testing of hydrants to determine how much fire

flow is actually available.

There are numerous techniques for monitoring water pressure going to a fire hydrant, and sensors are available to indicate the amount of water flowing when the

hydrant is opened. However, monitoring devices are only as good as their maintenance. If the current NFPA standards and guidance for installing and testing fire

hydrants are followed in a community, and any deficiencies uncovered during inspection and testing are remedied, then the community should not be experiencing

fire hydrant failures. The addition of remote sensing devices for monitoring water

pressure and/or flow, and the development of standards for their operation, would

not appreciably increase the level of protection for the community over the current

level provided by NFPA 1, NFPA 25 and NFPA 291. It is NIST’s opinion that the

cited NFPA codes, standards and guidance are adequate to address.

77

ANSWERS TO POST-HEARING QUESTIONS

Responses by Steven P. Westermann, President and Chief Fire Officer, International

Association of Fire Chiefs

Questions submitted by Chairman David Wu

Q1. You mentioned in your testimony that over a million firefighters nationwide

have not had the benefit of U.S. Fire Administration training. To what extent,

due to a lack of resources, is USFA failing to meet the demand for emergency

personnel training and public education opportunities?

A1. The National Fire Academy (NFA) is America’s premier fire training institution. According to the October 2, 2007, testimony of Chief Gregory B. Cade, the U.S.

Fire Administrator, the NFA trained 8,278 students on-campus and 76,918 students

through off-campus/distance learning training courses. In addition, the NFA partners with accredited State fire training programs, which trained over 750,000 firefighters last year.

Increased funding would allow the NFA to enhance both its course development

and outreach efforts. The NFA uses course work distributed over the Internet to

shorten the length of time that a student needs to spend taking classes at the Emmitsburg campus. With an increase in funding, the USFA could make more classes

available over the Internet and consider other new technologies for distributing educational content.

The ‘‘train-the-trainer’’ programs, which focus on training fire chiefs and the fire

departments’ training officers, are especially helpful for volunteer departments.

Many volunteer departments do not have the funding to send their volunteer firefighters to multi-week classes at Emmitsburg, and the volunteer firefighters may

not be able to make the time commitment. A ‘‘train-the-trainer’’ class allows the

training officer to travel to Emmitsburg for classes and then pass this information

to the other firefighters in the fire department. Increased funding for the USFA

would allow the NFA to develop additional ‘‘train the trainer’’ programs.

The NFA also benefits from close cooperation with State and local training organizations. When training can be supplied in the home state or locality, efficiencies are

created by saving travel costs and allowing for more flexible training program delivery schedules. In addition, local instructors are able to adapt training programs to

meet the unique needs of local communities. Currently, the NFA provides each state

with $25,000 annually to cover the costs associated with the delivery of these programs. This amount may not be enough to offset the costs incurred by State training

facilities. With increased funding, the USFA could provide an increased amount to

State training programs to run these vital programs.

Q2. Do you believe that the National Fire Academy (NFA) training activities have

an adequate balance between preparedness and response for terrorist events

versus the myriad other emergency events and management issues fire departments must confront? Does USFA have a strong enough all-hazards approach?

What about the Federal Emergency Management Association [sic] (FEMA)?

A2. In general, we believe that the NFA has an adequate balance of courses covering all hazards. The NFA classes cover a wide range of classes including hazardous materials response, arson investigation, tactical operations, leadership, and

the response to terrorism. The NFA should review its curricula to ensure that its

classes are up-to-date and include information about the new National Response

Framework (NRF), the National Incident Management System (NIMS), and other

new developments at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS). In addition,

the DHS should leverage the USFA’s and NFA’s expertise at developing training

materials to better educate first responders about the new NRF and its annexes,

the NIMS, and other DHS initiatives. By collaborating with the NFA, the DHS can

develop training courses and guides that can be easily understood and used by first

responders during emergencies.

Regarding whether the USFA and the FEMA have achieved the appropriate balance of preparedness and response capabilities for both terrorism and natural hazards, the IAFC is pleased that the USFA and FEMA have adopted a more robust

‘‘all-hazards’’ approach. The Fiscal Year 2007 Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act of 2007 (P.L. 109–295) included legislation that implemented a

number of reforms to focus the FEMA on using an ‘‘all-hazards’’ approach. The

IAFC is encouraged by the FEMA’s recent ‘‘all hazards’’ focus in the draft NRF, and

other administrative changes. In addition, Chief Cade has made ‘‘all-hazards’’ preparedness a focus at the USFA.

78

Q3. Administrator Cade mentioned in his testimony that USFA strongly advocates

for fire departments to be the centers for emergency preparedness in their jurisdictions. Is this message reaching local departments? Does USFA provide

enough guidance to help departments assume this role?

A3. In most communities, fire departments are the lead agencies for emergency preparedness. They provide emergency preparedness education through ‘‘open houses;’’

presentations to schools and community organizations; residential fire sprinkler

campaigns; smoke alarm distribution and training; and building code inspections.

The USFA has a number of educational materials available on the web and through

fire prevention training at the NFA to help local fire departments promote emergency preparedness in their communities. The DHS’s Assistance to Firefighters

Grant (AFG) program’s Fire Prevention and Safety grants also fund initiatives to

educate the public about emergency preparedness at the national and local levels.

In addition, the Emergency Management Institute (EMI) plays a large role in this

emergency preparedness outreach training. The EMI was transferred out of the

USFA’s jurisdiction as part of the Fiscal Year 2007 Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act (P.L. 109–295).

Of special importance is the USFA’s effort to advocate the increased use of residential fire sprinklers. Currently, only two percent of American homes have fire

sprinklers, despite the important lifesaving role that they play. According to the National Fire Protection Association, ‘‘when sprinklers are present in structures. . .,

the fire death rate per 1,000 reported structure fires is lower by at least 57 percent

and the rate of property damage per reported structure fire is lower by one-third

to two-thirds (34–68 percent).’’ Congress should continue to support the USFA’s efforts to work with the fire service to inform the American public about the advantages of installing fire sprinklers in homes.

Q4. How would you characterize USFA’s leadership role with respects to promoting

the adoption of national standards and other measures to decrease firefighter

line of duty deaths? What more could they be doing?

A4. The 16 Firefighter Life Safety Initiatives, developed under the auspices of the

National Fallen Firefighters Foundation, encourage the development of national

standards for emergency response policies and procedures, and firefighter training,

certification, and qualifications. The IAFC believes that the USFA has been an effective advocate for the use of national voluntary consensus standards to improve firefighter health and safety. National voluntary consensus standards, such as those developed by the National Fire Protection Association, include input from a number

of stakeholders, including fire chiefs; private industry; federal agencies, such as the

USFA; career and volunteer firefighters; fire service organizations; and other interested parties. These voluntary consensus standards currently cover many aspects of

firefighter training, equipment, incident operations, etc.

It is important to recognize that the cost of implementing these national voluntary

consensus standards can be expensive for both major metropolitan departments and

rural fire departments. Grant programs, such as the DHS’s AFG (popularly known

as the ‘‘FIRE’’ grant) program, play a critical role in helping fire departments fund

training and exercises, and purchase equipment that is consistent with national voluntary consensus standards. The DHS’ SAFER grant program helps fire departments hire career, or recruit and retain volunteer, firefighters to come into compliance with the staffing requirements of the NFPA 1710 ‘‘Standard on Fire Deployment and Operations.’’

Questions submitted by Representative Jim Matheson

Q1. Chief Westermann, in your testimony you referenced collaboration between the

USFA and the Department of Agriculture and Department of Interior. This issue

is particularly important in a state like mine where wildfires often require coordination between the U.S. Forest Service and local fire departments. How do

these agencies interact with one another? Are there ways to improve communication and coordination so that these agencies are prepared to work together to

fight fire?

A1. Background: In Utah, local fire departments often work directly with the U.S.

Forest Service to fight fires that encroach in residential areas. Despite coordination,

many fire departments and other first responders still face challenges in communicating with one another.

Good coordination between the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) and local fire departments can be an essential element to providing adequate wildland fire protection

for our country. In some areas, the relationships between the USFS and the local

79

fire departments are very strong, while the relationships need work in other areas.

The IAFC has been working for several years with the USFS and the U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI) in order to improve the relationship between the local

fire service and the federal wildland fire agencies. We believe that in order to be

most effective in the wildland and the wildland urban interface area, local, State

and federal (local units) agencies must work together in a seamless and integrated

manner.

However, we have discovered that it takes a significant amount of work at the

local, State, and national levels in order to develop a truly seamless and integrated

response to wildland fires, where local, State and federal (local units) agencies respond together as if they are one organization. In responding to a wildland fire, mutual aid can be quickly deployed from other states, and the different responding organizations must respect each other’s training, qualifications, and organizational

systems.

Grant programs such as the Volunteer Fire Assistance program (U.S. Department

of Agriculture) and the Rural Fire Assistance (DOI) program provide critical support

for the training and safety equipment that allows local governments to be effective

in fighting wildland fires. These programs also help to improve the relationship between the federal agencies and the local governments.

In order to enhance communication and coordination between local and federal

agencies, Congress also must address the issues surrounding wildland fire funding.

The state of fuels in our forest, demographic changes and the changing climate will

all have a significant impact on the wildland fire problem and the cost of fires in

the future. The fire suppression budget for the USFS should be adequately funded

and partitioned from their general budget.

As we move forward into the future, it is important to note that no one group—

local, State, federal or tribal—can effectively or efficiently address the wildland fire

problem alone; we must all work together and at all levels of government.

Again, I would like to thank you for your dedication to meeting the needs of

America’s fire service by moving to reauthorize the U.S. Fire Administration this

year.

80

ANSWERS TO POST-HEARING QUESTIONS

Responses by Robert Livingston, Legislative Director of the Oregon State Council of

Fire Fighters, International Association of Fire Fighters

Questions submitted by Chairman David Wu

Q1. Do you believe that the National Fire Academy (NFA) training activities have

an adequate balance between preparedness and response for terrorist events

versus the myriad other emergency events and management issues fire departments must confront? Does the U.S. Fire Administration (USFA) have a strong

enough all-hazards approach? What about the Federal Emergency Management

Agency (FEMA)?

A1. Having not had the opportunity to participate in the Academy’s training, I cannot speak personally to whether its training activities are, in practice, adequately

balanced. That said, the fire service has always utilized an all-hazards approach to

preparedness and response. For a firefighter, it doesn’t matter whether an emergency is natural or man-made, or the result of an accident or a terrorist attack. The

firefighter’s response is the same. As an experienced member of the fire service, Administrator Cade fully understands the importance of an all-hazards approach; the

programs and activities of the U.S. Fire Administration appropriately reflect this

understanding.

We have been concerned with the priority placed on terrorism preparedness and

response within the Department of Homeland Security, and have been actively involved in efforts to refocus the department on all-hazards. In 2006, the IAFF worked

closely with the Congress in crafting and passing legislation to reform FEMA. We

were pleased that the final bill enacted into law applied an all-hazards approach

to the Agency’s emergency preparedness and response activities. Since that time, we

believe the Agency has perceptibly moved in this direction—the recent positive federal response to the California wildfires is one illustration of FEMA’s commitment

to natural, as well as man-made, disasters.

Q2. You mention in your testimony that other federal agencies involved with firefighting activity do not necessarily engage with interest groups representing the

fire service community. Do you have specific examples? What role should USFA

take to encourage greater cooperation and coordination between federal agencies

and the local fire service?

A2. Myriad federal agencies administer programs and provide funding that impact

the fire service, but unlike USFA, these agencies often lack sufficient, accurate

knowledge about the fire service and the work firefighters do. As a result, the activities and programs of federal agencies sometimes complicate the fire services’ efforts

to serve their communities and carry out their mission.

For example, the Department of Justice administers the Public Safety Officer

Benefit (PSOB) program to provide death and disability benefits to the families of

public safety officers killed or injured in the line-of-duty. Congress recently amended

the program to award benefits to the families of officers who suffered a fatal heart

attack or stroke while involved in a non-routine stressful or strenuous physical activity while in the line of duty. DOJ bureaucrats, however, denied benefits to certain

applicants based on the assumption that the emergency activities the deceased officers were undertaking were ‘‘routine’’ for a firefighter. Although in clear violation

of Congressional intent, DOJ’s determinations resulted from a basic lack of knowledge about the physical and mental stress placed upon firefighters during even ‘‘routine’’ emergency activities.

USFA can help overcome this sort of disconnect by establishing relationships with

other federal agencies, both within and beyond the Department of Homeland Security, to educate such agencies about the fire service, as well as act as an advocate

for the expertise we can bring to bear throughout the Federal Government and its

activities.

Q3. Do USFA public education and fire awareness programs adequately address the

needs of the populations that career fire departments serve, especially those in

major metropolitan areas?

A3. USFA does an admirable job of educating citizens about residential fire safety,

and does pay particular attention to needs which may be unique to urban area populations, such as high-rise fire safety and arson awareness. USFA does an especially

good job in school outreach and educating elementary school children about basic

fire safety.

81

The frequent presence of immigrants and individuals who speak languages other

than English present unique fire safety challenges to large urban areas. Cultural

differences, language barriers, and a lack of familiarity with local emergency services provide unique challenges which may impede fire-safe practices within these

communities. USFA’s fire safety efforts should provide an increased emphasis on

these unique populations.

Questions submitted by Representative Phil Gingrey

Q1. In your testimony you advocated for a greater emphasis on Emergency Medical

Service needs by USFA and noted that fire departments provide EMS in nearly

all major cities. What is the prevalence of fire-based EMS in smaller towns and

rural communities? For those areas served by non-fire-based EMS, is USFA a

credible and appropriate agency to provide training management and support?

A1. There is a correlation between community size and the prevalence of fire-based

EMS. According to the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA), 100 percent of

fire departments serving cities of 500,000 or more provide EMS, 98 percent and 95

percent of departments serve cities of 250,000 to 499,999, and 100,000 to 249,999,

respectively. On the other end of the spectrum, 52 percent of fire departments serving communities with a population of 2,500 or less provide EMS.

As this data demonstrates, fire-based EMS is the prevalent delivery system for

pre-hospital 911 emergency medical response in the majority of American communities. This fact alone requires that USFA fully integrate EMS training and preparedness into its mission. However, even for communities that officially designate

some entity other than the fire service as the primary EMS provider, under most

true emergency conditions, firefighters still deliver on-scene health care. In such

communities, it is critically important that local firefighters be properly trained and

equipped to provide on-scene patient care for the survivors of fires, accidents, and

other incidents to which firefighters respond. By providing training and support to

these communities, USFA can help ensure the delivery of timely and effective patient care in an emergency.

Q2. You also report in your testimony that hazardous materials incidents have skyrocketed in number and danger over the past few years. Can you put this into

perspective for the Committee? What are the unique implications of hazmat incidents for training and equipping firefighters?

A2. According to the National Fire Protection Association, fire department calls related to hazardous materials emergency response have more than doubled in the

past twenty years, from 171,500 hazmat calls in 1986 to 375,000 such calls in 2005.

As the number of hazardous materials incidents have increased, so too has the complexity and dangerous nature of responding to such incidents multiplied. This is due

to the increased transportation of hazardous materials, the growing prevalence of

chemicals in our daily lives, and the very real threat posed by terrorism, whether

chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, or explosive.

These factors contribute to the threat of hazmat incidents in every geographical

region and communities of all sizes. As a result, it is critically important that all

firefighters, whether professional or volunteer, are adequately trained and equipped

to respond to potential incidents.

Unfortunately, in too many communities responder training falls far short of what

is necessary to ensure a safe and efficient response. In their Second Needs Assessment of the U.S. Fire Service, NFPA estimates that 38 percent of firefighters whose

duties involve hazmat response lack formal training of any kind.

Furthermore, only 29 percent of fire departments report all personnel to be

trained in hazmat response at some level. And for those firefighters who are

trained, the level of training provided is often insufficient to their duties and responsibilities. The minimum level of training needed by first responders is ‘‘operations’’ level. Operations training is specifically designed for the initial emergency

response which occurs within minutes of the incident being reported. These emergency responders stabilize the situation and prepare the emergency scene for the

hazmat specialists who will undertake direct mitigation. They are trained to contain

the release from a safe distance, keep it from spreading and prevent exposures.

All firefighters should also be required to undergo annual refresher training to

provide responders an opportunity to brush up on perhaps seldom-used knowledge

and skills, and familiarize responders with new technology which may be used or

encountered during a response.

A lack of sufficient staff and appropriate equipment also poses a major challenge

to most communities facing a hazmat incident. Some jurisdictions lack even the

82

most basic equipment for hazardous materials response, such as turn-out gear and

self-contained breathing apparatus, much less the more advanced equipment required for radiological and nuclear emergency response. Furthermore, two-thirds of

the Nation’s fire departments lack sufficient personnel to carry out a safe and effective response to a structural fire, much less an incident involving hazardous materials. Meeting these basic needs of our nation’s fire departments is necessary to protect the public from everyday incidents as well as incidents involving hazardous materials.

83

ANSWERS TO POST-HEARING QUESTIONS

Responses by Gordon Henderson, Deputy Chief of Operations, Rome-Floyd County

Fire Department; Past President of the Georgia State Firefighters Association,

National Volunteer Fire Council

Questions submitted by Chairman David Wu

Q1. Do you believe that the National Fire Academy (NFA) training activities have

an adequate balance between preparedness and response for terrorist events

versus the myriad other emergency events and management issues fire departments must confront? Does the U.S. Fire Administration (USFA) have a strong

enough all-hazards approach? What about the Federal Emergency Management

Agency (FEMA)?

A1. Although there has been more of an emphasis placed on preparedness and response to terrorist events in recent years, generally the National Fire Academy

(NFA) does maintain a good balance of offering courses that address the broad

range of issues that firefighters must be prepared to deal with. However, the NVFC

is concerned that in recent years NFA has not been provided the resources to update course curriculum for many of their core non-terrorism specific courses.

The NVFC believes that the United States Fire Administration’s (USFA’s) focus

is on all hazards. The NVFC believes that Congress could strengthen USFA’s ability

to focus on all hazards by passing a reauthorization that specifies that emergency

medical services, wildland fire response, and hazardous materials response are core

components of USFA’s mission.

When the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) was merged into the

Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the top priority within DHS was preparing for and responding to terrorist events. This focus filtered into FEMA even

as pieces of FEMA were transferred to different directorates within DHS. Since

Hurricane Katrina, there has been greater recognition of the importance of an allhazards approach. With the appointment of R. David Paulison as FEMA Administrator and passage of legislation reorganizing FEMA in the 2006 DHS Appropriations Act, FEMA has improved dramatically in terms of its commitment to addressing all-hazards.

Q2. You mention in your testimony that USFA has worked to condense classes and

shorten the amount of time a volunteer firefighter would have to spend in the

classroom. You also mention that USFA recently partnered with the National

Volunteer Fire Council (NVFC) to develop the ‘‘Recruitment and Retention Guide

for the Volunteer Emergency Services.’’ Have these efforts had an impact on recruitment and retention for the volunteer fire service? What else could USFA do

to address the recruitment and retention problems faced by volunteer departments across the country?

A2. Through condensed courses, the Volunteer Incentive Program (VIP) courses

make it possible for more volunteers to receive better training. Increased training

demands are one of the major challenges facing communities in retaining and recruiting volunteer firefighters, so there is no doubt that VIP helps in this regard,

but it is not a specific retention and recruitment tool.

The Retention and Recruitment Guide for the Volunteer Emergency Services identifies a wide range of recruitment and retention challenges facing communities and

recommends strategies for dealing with each one. In the NVFC’s last cooperative

agreement with USFA there was funding to deliver recruitment and retention training based on the guide. Unfortunately, there was far more demand for training than

funds to provide it. Additional funding to provide recruitment and retention training

would be useful.

Question submitted by Representative Phil Gingrey

Q1. You made the suggestion in your testimony that USFA seek to link the NFIRS

database with the National Emergency Medical Services Information System

(NEMSIS), could you explain what the benefits of such a linkage would be?

A1. The fire service provides 60 percent of emergency medical service in this country. The National Fire Incident Reporting System (NFIRS) captures data from fire

department responses, including fire service-based EMS responses. The National

Emergency Medical Services Information System (NEMSIS) captures data from

EMS responses, whether or not they are fire service-based. The NVFC is not suggesting that NFIRS and NEMSIS be combined into one single data collection sysVerDate 11-MAY-2000 11:08 Jan 20, 2008 Jkt 037985 PO 00000 Frm 00087 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6621 C:\WORKD\T&I07\100207\37985 SCIENCE1 PsN: SCIENCE1
84

tem. The NVFC does feel that it is important that USFA, which administers NFIRS,

and the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA), which

administers NEMSIS, should work together to ensure that the data that is being

collected is as accurate and useful as possible, as well as to reduce potential duplication of activities.

85

ANSWERS TO POST-HEARING QUESTIONS

Responses by John R. Hall, Jr., Assistant Vice President, Fire Analysis and Research, National Fire Protection Association

Questions submitted by Chairman David Wu

Q1. Are the U.S. Fire Administration (USFA), the National Institute of Standards

and Technology (NIST), and other fire research agencies, sufficiently engaged in

technology transfer activities that accelerate the adoption of research development and findings into practice? Can more be done to lower the cost of many

fire detection and suppression technologies?

A1. (a) The USFA and NIST pay considerable attention to effective, multi-channel

approaches to technology transfer. In my personal, recent experience, I have observed or worked with both agencies as they (i) provide presentations to diverse audiences of potential users, with content tailored to the needs and interests of each

audience; (ii) provide easy Internet access to both findings and supporting data, in

a form that allows users to extend or review their analysis; (iii) participate in national and international standards development activities to convert new findings

into standardized best practices; (iv) set up as vendors of new software and new research at conferences of kindred groups and potential users; (v) respond in detail

to questions from the field, providing extensive ‘service after the sale’ for research

results; and (vi) provide articles, ready-to-use presentations, training materials, and

other user-friendly versions of new findings, all provided without copyright limitations on potential users. At the same time, both agencies are very aware of the limits of law and propriety regarding the extension of their own activities into the development of commercial products for sale.

(b) Most USFA and NIST research on fire detection and suppression technologies

has focused on potentials for improvement in performance or reliability. I do not believe cost is considered a significant obstacle to the use of fire detection technologies.

Rather, public expectations of very low cost has been an obstacle to the creation of

public demand for new features that would improve performance or reliability. Cost

has been perceived as an obstacle for use of fire suppression technologies, notably

fire sprinklers. Both USFA and NIST have conducted research on low-cost alternatives, including single-sprinkler concepts for the kitchen that will use piped water

already serving that room. I do not believe this approach can yet be considered proven; it seems to reduce benefits as much or more than it reduces costs, and it introduces potential modes of failure (i.e., fire spreading to unsprinklered areas before

sprinkler activation) that raise concerns about its likely field effectiveness and reliability. Nevertheless, it illustrates that both USFA and NIST are aware of system

cost as a barrier to wider use and have proven themselves willing to pursue research on any promising approach that might lower costs while preserving effectiveness.

Q2. You mention in your testimony that USFA has shown leadership in setting priorities for fire research and in putting high quality projects in motion. Given

that USFA has limited funding for research, are there broad areas of research

that are neglected due to lack of funding?

A2. In past years when funding levels were higher, the USFA was able to pursue

a substantial research agenda in such areas as human behavior and fire safety educational methods, management methods and operational rules for the fire service.

In a number of areas (e.g., fire code inspection effectiveness), we are still using results from USFA-funded projects that are decades old. Also, USFA funding restrictions have meant reduction, delay, or elimination of promising NIST projects on fire

service health and safety equipment performance and on active fire protection systems. In all of these areas, the USFA—directly or indirectly through partners like

NIST—has produced a steady flow of highly professional and highly useful work,

but there is so much more they could do with funding more in line with past years.

Q3. You say in your testimony that USFA can ‘‘improve the climate in which decisions about adoption [of voluntary codes and standards] are made by forcefully

and visibly supporting the voluntary consensus codes and standards process and

by putting. . . the weight of its own reputation and leadership in support of

compliance with national fire service standards.’’ How can USFA take a more

visible role in this process and what could they be doing specifically to encourage State and local fire agencies to adopt these standards?

86

A3. The context for my testimony was my frustration that so many otherwise

knowledgeable members of the fire community believe that any standard or code not

issued by government officials must be an industry standard and so must reflect the

values and concerns of an affected industry. NFPA’s consensus process is designed

to produce a true consensus among all affected parties regarding desired levels of

safety and preferred methods to achieve such safety. The USFA can help by (i) taking every opportunity to state its own belief in the value of true consensus and the

quality of codes and standards produced in accordance with such principles, (ii)

treating standards developing organizations as the first and best place to target for

technology transfer, and (iii) recommending and if possible requiring compliance

with applicable consensus standards as a condition for participation in programs of

the USFA.

Q4. In your written testimony you note that rural populations have one of the highest

fire fatality rates in the U.S. Why is this? Have USFA or other organizations

developed programs to combat these high numbers?

A4. We have known of the unusually high fire fatality rates in U.S. rural areas for

at least three decades. Past analyses have noted that rural communities and inner

cities have the highest rates of poverty and of other high-risk characteristics, as well

as having the highest fire fatality rates by size of community or neighborhood.

NFPA recently completed a major study, under a grant from the USFA, to develop

a more detailed understanding, not only of the overall rural fire problem, but also

of the differences between the fire problems of such distinct areas as the rural

Southeast, the Native American and migrant worker areas of the rural West, and

the rural Northeast and Midwest regions. At this writing, NFPA and the USFA are

completing the final edits to the results of that project, and it should be posted on

the USFA website soon. It includes an identification of educational messaging tailored to rural communities, a guide for educators tailored to the needs of those

working in rural communities, and an identification of potential organizational partners who have shown interest in reducing fire losses in rural communities or have

demonstrated skill in delivering effective public programs in such settings. Note also

that this is not the first study of the rural fire problem conducted by the USFA or

under its auspices.

Q5. Is USFA involved in any research to evaluate optimal fire and emergency service

asset management and distribution to achieve the greatest level of community

protection, especially in disaster scenarios that strain resources?

A5. I believe this question is directed toward such program areas as the design and

implementation of written agreements and related plans to permit large numbers

of communities to pool their resources for major incidents, conduct integrated incident command at such incidents, and achieve smaller efficiencies through mutual

aid and reciprocal response based on distance to appropriate resources rather than

jurisdictional boundaries. The USFA has on occasion conducted research to identify

best practices among fire departments and to facilitate the exchange of information

on model programs or actual programs that have worked well. Much of the detailed

work in written agreements and plans, though, is facilitated by the USFA’s parent

agency of FEMA or kindred agencies like the U.S. Forest Service. I do not believe

the USFA—or any other entity—is attempting to define or identify optimal arrangements. In my experience, optimization analysis on these subjects tends to require

so much simplification of the options and conditions that no one quite trusts the answers. However, the spirit of optimization can be and is achieved through the use

of methods that identify, implement and build on continuous improvements.

Questions submitted by Representative Phil Gingrey

Q1. You state in your testimony that needs assessments have not documented a significant improvement in staffing or training needs, stating that the amounts

spent are simply nowhere near those necessary to significantly impact these

areas. Accepting this, has NFPA performed any research to try to quantify the

impact of training programs when they are available?

A1. NFPA has concentrated on building quality and impact into the programs from

the beginning, through its suite of professional qualifications standards. Most training programs fall under the umbrella of an educational institution such as a State

fire academy with individual training results evaluated by a separate certification

body. These are proven methods to assure quality in a training program. NFPA has

not conducted longitudinal studies to determine how much skill and knowledge is

87

retained over the short- or long-term for different training programs. This might be

a useful area for a multi-year USFA-funded project.

Q2. Has the NFPA needs assessment documented the use of advanced medical training by firefighters outside of fire-based EMS? How often are firefighters called

on to perform medical interventions in the absence of or prior to the arrival of

EMS technicians? Has the USFA assessed the degree of duplication between

medical interventions by firefighters versus those of fully trained EMS personnel?

A2. As of 2005, local fire departments responded to 23.3 million emergency calls,

and 14.4 million of those were for medical aid. The second needs assessment found

that in the same year, 67 percent of U.S. fire departments provided emergency medical service, including all departments serving communities of at least 250,000 population. The percentage of departments offering the service has been steadily increasing for many years, and both the number of EMS calls and the EMS share of total

calls have also been steadily increasing. For departments that provide EMS service,

47 percent reported that all their personnel providing the service had received formal training, while 27 percent reported most personnel trained, 26 percent reported

some personnel trained, and zero percent reported no personnel trained. As for certification, 98 percent of departments report at least some personnel certified to at

least the First Responder level, 87 percent report at least some personnel certified

to at least the Basic Life Support level; 50 percent report at least some personnel

certified to at least the Advanced Life Support level; and 18 percent report at least

some personnel certified to at least the Paramedic level.

I am unaware of any database that would identify the involvement of other parties in medical aid at incidents where fire departments have provided service, let

alone any data that would indicate the roles played by each party or the sequence

in which each party became involved. I also am not aware of any data on how often

more fully trained or certified personnel might have been available to assist on incidents in which fire departments provided service, how quickly those other personnel

might have been able to respond, or any other incident characteristics that might

indicate duplication. Any such data would also have to relate the roles played by

EMS providers to the roles played by personnel in receiving hospitals or other medical facilities.

My sense, unsupported by any hard data, is that fire departments have increased

their provision of EMS service because in most communities they are able to respond faster than anyone else, and my understanding is that time is the most critical factor in successful outcomes. I would not want to assume, especially in the absence of data, that any fire department is delivering EMS in a community where

more trained or more certified personnel are available and able to respond as quickly. But the direct answer to your question is that I do not know of anyone, including

the USFA, who has collected specific data on these points.

(89)

Appendix 2:

ADDITIONAL MATERIAL FOR THE RECORD

90

91

92

93

94

95

96

97

98

Æ