Emmitsburg, MD – The United States Fire Administration (USFA) has released two technical reports titled Watts Bar Hydroelectric Plant Fire and Fireboats: Then and Now. These reports provide detailed information for policymakers who must allocate resources between fire and other pressing problems, and for professionals within the fire service who can use the information to improve codes and code enforcement, training, public fire education, building technology, and other areas.
The report, Watts Bar Hydroelectric Plant Fire, demonstrated that, despite perceptions to the contrary, steel and concrete structures are a fire risk and that a fire in an electric system can quickly become life-threatening; regardless of the structure type.
The report, Fireboats: Then and Now, shows how the fireboat has continued to evolve over the past 200 years to meet the changing needs of the fire service. Today’s fireboat is a versatile, multi-purpose emergency response platform with proven operational capabilities in a wide range of situations. New designs respond to the changing and more challenging marine environment. With the U.S. Coast Guard increasingly tasked with broader duties related to homeland security issues, some of the waterfront duties normally handled by the Coast Guard are falling to fire departments.
The USFA develops technical reports on selected major fires throughout the country. The fires usually involve multiple deaths or a large loss of property but the primary criterion for deciding to write a report is whether it will result in significant “lessons learned.” In some cases these lessons bring to light new knowledge about fire — the effect of building construction or contents, human behavior in fire, etc. In other cases, the lessons are not new, but are serious enough to highlight once again because of another fire tragedy.
To download copies of these reports, visit www.usfa.fema.gov/.
