USFA: 87 LODDs in 2010

According to the United States Fire Administration (USFA) report “Firefighter Fatalities in the United States in 2010,” 87 on-duty firefighters from 31 states lost their lives as the result of 83 fatal incidents that occurred in 2010. This is the second consecutive year of substantially fewer firefighter line-of-duty deaths (LODDs) in the United States. During the previous six-year period of 2004-2009, the average number of annual LODDs was 112.

An overview of the 87 firefighters who died while on duty in 2010 follows:

Nine of the firefighters were from Illinois; New York and Ohio each had eight firefighter deaths.
Fifty-six were from volunteer departments, 28 from career departments, and three were from wildland agencies.
Two firefighters were killed in each of four firefighter fatality incidents.
Eleven firefighters died in duties associated with wildland fires.
Activities related to emergency incidents resulted in the deaths of 48 firefighters.
Twenty-two firefighters died while engaging in activities at a fire scene.
Sixteen firefighters died while responding to or returning from 15 emergency incidents. Nine of the firefighters killed while responding to incidents died from heart attacks (8) or stroke (1).
Heart attacks, again, were the most frequent cause of death (50).
Twelve firefighters died while engaged in training activities.
Fifteen firefighters died after the conclusion of their on-duty activity.

Line-of-Duty Deaths

September 22. Captain George Fisher III, 57, Sandy Bottom Volunteer Fire & Rescue, Kinston, NC: collapsed from a cause still to be determined.

September 25. Lieutenant Keith Gregory Rankin, 35, Lancaster Township Fire Department, Bausman, PA: collapsed from a medical emergency while coordinating live-burn training.

September 29. Firefighter II Vince Cruz, 41, Guahan Fire Department, Hagatna, Guam: cause to be determined.

October 3. Lieutenant Andrew “Andy” K. Boyt, 45, Cape May (NJ) Fire Department: cause of death under investigation.

Source: USFA Firefighters Memorial Database

More bioterrorism preparedness needed

Although our country is more prepared for a biological attack or a naturally occurring pandemic than it was 10 years ago, experts testifying before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee in October said certain factors could interfere with the ability to treat people effectively.

The experts cited as factors that have improved preparedness the creation of new disease surveillance systems, new vaccines, and new ways to analyze and characterize threats.

On the other hand, they explained that effective treatment of the public could be adversely affected by “an understaffed public health care system, an absence of countermeasures to many threats, and an insufficient ability to rapidly distribute therapeutics to a mass population.”

Committee Chairman Joe Lieberman (ID-CT) and Ranking Member Susan Collins (R-ME) evaluated the country’s preparedness for a biological incident during their 10th hearing in a yearlong “Ten Years After 9/11” series.

Lieberman noted that over those 10 years, billions of dollars were spent on biodefense research; strengthening first responder capabilities; and developing new vaccines, biosurveillance systems, and forensic science techniques. But, he added, we are not prepared for a catastrophic biological incident, judging from the reports. He noted also other areas that need bolstering: gaps in the weapons of mass destruction protection program, the lack of a strategy for dispensing vaccines and antibiotics in a mass crisis, and an understaffed medical surge force to respond to a biological attack in communities around the country.

Collins expressed concern that the multitude of federal agencies that have some responsibility for bioterrorism “could be scrambling to respond during and after an attack.” She cited the Department of Homeland Security; Environmental Protection Agency; Human Health Services; Centers for Disease, Control, and Prevention; U.S. Department of Agriculture; and Federal Bureau of Investigations, among others. She noted that state and local health officials and first responders are part of the system as well.

She said, “The low-tech, unglamorous but critically important system of intelligence combined with a robust public health surveillance network is the best hope of detecting and containing an attack.” She warned against “looking for technological ‘magic bullets’ to relieve us of the duty to maintain and strengthen our public health surveillance infrastructure.”

Some recent reports have said that the threat of a bioterrorism attack remains as strong as ever.

USFA releases residential fires report

An estimated 374,900 residential building fires are reported to U.S. fire departments each year and cause an estimated 2,630 deaths, 13,075 injuries, and $7.6 billion in property loss, according to the “Residential Building Fires” special report, developed by the U.S. Fire Administration’s National Fire Data Center. Residential buildings include what are commonly referred to as homes (one- and two-family dwellings and multifamily buildings). Also included are manufactured housing, hotels and motels, residential hotels, dormitories, assisted-living facilities, and halfway houses.

The report cites cooking as the leading cause of residential building fires (44 percent) and notes that nearly all these fires are small, confined fires (94 percent).

The leading causes of the 46 percent of nonconfined (beyond the room of origin) residential building fires are electrical malfunctions (16 percent), unintentional or careless actions (15 percent), intentionally set (12 percent), and open flame (11 percent), the report notes, and smoke alarms were not present in 21 percent of the larger, nonconfined fires in occupied residential buildings.

The report, part of the Topical Fire Report Series, is based on 2007 through 2009 National Fire Incident Reporting System data.

NFPA releases standard on gas pipe purging

National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) 56PS, Standard for Fire and Explosion Prevention during Cleaning and Purging of Flammable Gas Piping Systems, 2012 edition, prohibits the use of flammable gas as a cleaning agent for the interior of pipes.

The impetus for the new standard was the 2010 explosion in Middletown, Connecticut, at the Kleen Energy Power Plant that was under construction at that time. Six workers were killed, and nearly 50 others were injured. As part of the commissioning process for this facility, highly pressurized flammable gas (natural gas) was used to clean debris from the piping; the gas was then discharged, without controls, into the atmosphere, causing the explosion.

The U.S. Chemical Safety Board investigated and then issued recommendations to various parties including the NFPA, which formed a new technical committee to develop the new NFPA 56PS standard. It addresses not only the “gas blows” cleaning practice but also a broad range of gas-process activities, such as pipe cleaning, repair, replacement, and removal procedures conducted at power plants and for industrial, institutional, and commercial applications.

NFPA 56PS also covers cleaning new or repaired piping systems, placing piping systems into service, and removing piping systems from service. Written procedures must be developed, and the safety of the procedures must be validated by competent persons.

Additional information on NFPA 56PS can be found at www.nfpa.org/56.

ASTM E2768 describes test protocol

The new ASTM E2768, Test Method for Extended Duration Surface Burning Characteristics of Building Materials (30 Min. Tunnel Test), provides a more detailed and complete description of a test protocol that has been used for more than 40 years in code requirements and specifications for fire retardant-treated wood and also in some codes for building products that are not wood, according to ASTM.

Robert H. White, Ph.D., a scientist with the Forest Products Laboratory, explains that the procedure described in ASTM E2768 is often described in building codes and specifications as a “30-minute ASTM E84 test.” White says the E84 test is really a 10-minute test and contains no reference to a 30-minute test option. ASTM E2768, on the other hand, will enable users of the test reports to better understand some of the intricacies of the protocol, according to White, “and will allow the regulatory language to simply be a reference to the standard.”

NFPA: Lower number of fires, higher number of fire deaths

“Fire Loss in the United States during 2010,” released by the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA), reported that public fire departments responded to 1,331,500 fires in the United States during 2010, slightly down from the number in 2009 and the lowest number since 1977. Yet, civilian fire deaths increased by four percent (an estimated 3,120 deaths). Lorraine Carli, the NFPA’s vice president of communications, noted that more must be done to decrease the number of deaths, most of which occur in homes. She said these survey results will be combined with data from the U.S. Fire Administration’s National Fire Incident Reporting System “to determine how often specific fire circumstances occur and where efforts can be most effectively focused.”

Other findings for 2010 included in the report follow:

There were an estimated 17,720 civilian fire injuries and more than $11.5 billion in property damage
An estimated 482,000 structure fires were reported to fire departments.
A fire department responded to a fire every 24 seconds.
There were 215,500 vehicle fires; they caused 310 civilian fire deaths, 1,590 civilian fire injuries, and $1.4 billion in property damage.

The report can be downloaded at www.nfpa.org/assets/files/pdf/os.fireloss.pdf.