Fire Chief

On the evening of April 1, after two very productive days of intense brainstorming and in-depth discussions, the curtain finally came down on the first act of the Vision 20/20’s National Strategic Agenda for Fire Loss Prevention. This forum gathered more than 170 participants who represented the who’s who of fire safety from across the country, the United Kingdom and Australia.

“This project is unprecedented in scope and depth,” said Jim Crawford, fire marshal for the city of Vancouver, Wash., and the Vision 20/20 project manager. “We have assembled an incredible array of experts from a diversity of fields to help craft a national plan to reduce the loss of life and property from fire. Through our collective efforts we will develop strategies that will save lives, now and for the future.”

Vision 20/20 was conceived last year when the Institute of Fire Engineers–U.S. Branch received a DHS Fire Prevention and Safety Grant to develop a comprehensive national strategy for fire prevention. This project’s goal is to help bring together fire-prevention efforts to collectively and effectively address the fire problem in the United States.

It is a noble cause, but the fire service has been down this road many times before. The President’s Conference on Fire Prevention in 1947, the release of the America Burning report in 1973, the update with the America Burning Revisited report in 1987, and the release of the America Burning, Recommissionedreport in 2000 all focused on the very same issue.

So what’s different about the Vision 20/20 plan? According to the forum’s Web site:

1. This project involves a large number of participants representing all areas of fire prevention, as well as other advocates and stakeholders to the plan and its recommended outcomes.
   


2. This project is committed to action, with a few strategic recommendations being converted to a national plan that stakeholders will be asked to support with documentation of specific actions and benchmarks instead of a long list of recommended practices that everyone agrees are important (but then never get completed).
   


3. This project will not create recommendations in a vacuum. Other existing efforts that have identified significant progress toward achieving prevention goals will be taken into account to avoid competing efforts.
   


4. A long-term monitoring mechanism will provide regular reports on the progress of the strategic initiatives that arise out of Vision 20/20.
   

If commitment to action is the litmus test, then the fact that despite many challenges Vision 20/20 was able to pull such a high-caliber team together in such a productive forum is a major accomplishment. This forum is a significant step in the right direction, but this is only the first step in beginning the journey. More is still to come.

Reviewing the reports from the previous national conferences, a common theme for increasing efforts in fire prevention is always emphasized as a key component to the fire-safety problem in the United States.

Recognizing the importance of fire prevention, IFE invited panelists from Australia and England to share their experiences. The “International Perspective” panel discussion was quite interesting and of tremendous value in disseminating information about the incredibly innovative approaches and programs that are currently being done overseas, which we could learn a lot from.

Neil Bibby, chief executive officer of County Fire Authority, Victoria, Australia; Philip Hales, head of community fire safety of Cheshire Fire & Rescue Services, Winsford, England; Phil Schaenman, president of Tri-Data Systems Planning Corp.; and Mick Ballesteros, epidemiologist/team lead of the Home and Recreation Injury Prevention with the Centers for Disease Control; shared their experiences and successes in reducing fire fatalities and losses, which only underlined the fact many of us in the United States are only beginning to realize about how far behind the rest of the world we are in our fire prevention efforts.

At the end of the two days, the participants of the Vision 20/20 Forum identified five specific strategies and developed action plans for reducing fire fatalities and losses in America. The specifics and the details of these strategies will be posted on the Vision 20/20 Web site in the very near future, but here are the outlines:

• Advocacy. Get on the agenda to make America safe from fire.
  


• Public education. Establish a consistent, sustained, multi-faceted educational/social marketing campaign to reduce risks and losses from fire by getting people to change their behavior toward fire safety.
  


• Fire service culture. Shift the organizational culture within the fire service so that prevention is accepted and supported as a primary service for public safety.
  


• Technology. Promote and leverage existing and new technology to enhance fire and life safety.
  


• Codes and standards. Development and application of codes and standards to enhance public and firefighter safety and preserve community assets.
  

“Everyone wants to see something happen,” said Crawford. “They just don’t want another report sitting on the shelf. They want to see action. They want to show that taxpayers’ money was not wasted.”

According to Ed Comeau with writer-tech.com, “Everyone was in agreement that it will be critically important for there to be an ongoing commitment to this project and its ideas. Many people signed up to continue working on the various strategies as this project continues to move forward, demonstrating such a commitment.”

I hope that this level of excitement and commitment continues in the future, and just like the participants, we all recognize that this forum was not the conclusion, but merely the beginning of our journey in addressing the fire problem in our country. Back in the 1947, at the conclusion of the Conference on Fire Prevention, it was stated “we have enlisted not for a brief skirmish, but for the whole campaign. In winning that campaign we shall have the satisfaction of knowing that we are saving lives and putting an end to the wanton destruction of our nation’s resources.” It just can’t be said any better than that.

I am amazed and very grateful for the hard work and long hours that Peg Carson with Carson Associates and Bill Kehoe with the IFE–USA spent to bring this first act to the national stage. Without their admirable commitment to the cause, this indeed would not have been possible.