Burn reporting law now in effect in New York State
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Dispatches
New York has joined the State of Massachusetts in adopting a burn reporting law whose purpose is “to combat arson through speedier identification and apprehension of arsonists, many of whom suffer burns in the course of their crime,” said Secretary of State Gail S. Shaffer.
The new law requires all physicians, hospitals, and other facilities treating burn injuries to immediately report secondand third-degree burn cases to the New York State Office of Fire Prevention and Control. A written report must follow within 72 hours. A 24-hour burn reporting hotline was set up; the number is 1-800-345-5811. Failure to submit such a report is a Class A misdemeanor (punishable by up to six months in jail and/or a fine).
The burn reporting law took effect in New York November 1, 1985, and is modeled after the state’s gunshot reporting law and Massachusetts’ burn reporting law, according to a spokesman for the New York State Fire Administrator’s Office.
The law added a new section to New York’s Penal Law (Section 265.26) and reads: “… every case of burn injury or wound where the victim sustained second or third degree burns to 5% or more of the body; any burns to the upper respiratory tract or laryngeal edema due to the inhalation of super-heated air; and every case of a burn injury or wound likely to or which may result in death, shall be reported at once to the Office of Fire Prevention and Control. The State Fire Administrator shall accept the report and notify the proper investigatory agency.”
There is a less than 3% conviction rate in arson-related fires, said a spokesman from the New York City Fire Department’s Fire Marshal’s Office. According to a spokesman from the State Fire Marshal’s Office in Massachusetts, where the burn reporting law has been in effect since June 1984, the burn reporting system has already helped fire officials find and identify five arson suspects and helped to arrest one. To be able to say this within the short time that the law has been enforced, said the spokesman, “supports the hypothesis that the burn reporting law is a good arson investigation tool.”
The institution of the burn reporting law in New York stems from a five-year campaign headed by New York City Fire Department’s Fire Marshal James D. McSwigin.
This law is also expected to prove useful in developing a statewide burn data base. By learning what types of burns are most encountered by the public at large, more effective burn prevention and fire education programs can be set up.
On a more personal note, in 1984 there were 117 line-of-duty fire deaths. Twelve of these firefighters died in incendiary or suspicious fires.
