IAFF Conducts Study to Improve Fire Fighter Safety and Deployment

June 23, 2008 – The IAFF has partnered with four fire service research organizations* to conduct a study to determine what staffing levels, response times and deployment of resources work best when responding to variety of fire or EMS events in an effort to minimize the safety risks to fire fighters, paramedics and the public.

Funded by a grant from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Assistance to Firefighters Grant Program (FIRE Act), this study will help develop tools for fire departments to use to better assess the risks in their communities and to deploy resources more effectively and efficiently to match the level of risk.

The results of this study will be especially useful to the many fire departments across the nation that are challenged by budget crises, rising call volume, personnel and equipment shortages, security issues and an overall expectation to do more with less. These and other factors, all too often, lead to an increasing number of line-of-duty injuries and death.

More than 400 fire departments throughout the United States have been selected to participate in this national study. Each department will be asked to participate in the data-gathering effort using a custom-developed web-based form. Although participation is voluntary, all selected departments are strongly encouraged to cooperate so that the integrity of the scientific study is maintained. All data provided will be treated confidentially.

Any fire department not selected for inclusion in the study is still welcome to participate in entering data by signing up at www.firereporting.org. Once a department is registered, it will be issued an ID code and password for data entry. Data entered will be used for validation purposes.

For more information, click here or contact Dr. Lori Moore-Merrell at (202) 824-1594 or Lmoore@iaff.org.

*International Association of Fire Chiefs (IAFC); National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST); Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI); and the Commission on Fire Accreditation International (CFAI).