NFPCA Conference Brings Together Policy-Makers and Fire Leaders
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Policy issues associated with the built environment, fire prevention, fire suppression and fire protection leadership were the major jobs tackled at the third annual conference of the National Fire Prevention and Control Administration held at St. Louis, October 24-26 and attended by some 600 persons.
Howard D. Tipton, in opening the conference, noted that “policy-makers all over this country are allowing fire hazards to exist by making policy decisions that accept risk without the knowledge that such a risk is being accepted.”
And with this thought he announced that the plan of the conference was designed “to provide a better understanding of fire risk in two directions— for the policy-maker and for the fire protection community.”
Tipton added that “we’re not only concerned about policy-makers at all levels of government (at the conference) but we are also concerned about those who influence policy, and those who set standards that may influence policy.” He emphasized, too, his concern about communicating “what is happening in our fire protection systems today and what should be happening tomorrow.
Educate the legislators
“For too long, the fire community has been talking to itself.” This was the opinion of F,d Lindquist, who is majority leader of the Oregon House of Representatives in addition to being a captain in the Clackamas County Fire District No. 1. Lindquist, using the tragic Beverly Hills Supper Club fire as an example, pointed out that there were existing laws and ordinances that could have prevented this holocaust but the fire services failed to enforce them. “We also have not been effective in educating our local and state elected officials about the dangers of neglecting fire safety,” he continued. These people, he said, are also under duty to see that laws are observed and enforced. But they can do this only if they are provided with the right information, he stressed.
Lindquist explained that, across the nation, architects and building officials and others lobby at every legislative session for changes in existing laws. And that many times these amendments pass only because the legislators hear only from supporters of the change. “Time after time,” he deplored, “the legislators get no contrary information from fire and life safety experts.”
Collective bargaining
Any policy decisions affecting the paid fire fighter will have to be made on the basis of collective bargaining, according to W. Howard McClennan, president of the International Association of Fire Fighters (AFL-CIO). The association, he said, “is committed to the principle of collective bargaining over such issues as pay, benefits and retirement issues. We know of no sound alternative to this principle,” he stressed.
McClennan noted that where there was no acceptable mechanism for the settlement of disputes, strikes have resulted. He claimed that he did not know of a strike-happy fire fighter but added that “we have had enough situations in which frustrated men feel that only by striking can they maintain their human dignity and perhaps win the reasonable concessions which should better have been produced in reasonable negotiations.”
The union president drew attention to the fact that full and binding arbitration procedures already exist in 12 states and expressed his perplexity at the continued opposition to it in the other states.
The built environment
“There are too many laws and regulations” was the opinion of Joseph F. Fitzgerald, commissioner of buildings, Chicago, who addressed himself to the built environment. “And there are too many overlapping jurisdictions.” He also said that there is too much confusion in the regulations that are passed.
As to the legislators themselves, he added, they feel that they must pass laws—and that is their claim to fame— and that the laws keep accumulating. He expressed the wish that “if we can somehow scientifically and technologically determine what is correct and incorrect in the fire prevention field, the legislators would then have something definite and specific on which to base their legislation. When this is accomplished,” he added, “then the enforcement aspects have to come into play.”
What fire does
Policy-makers were urged by Dr. Howard W. Emmons of Harvard University to keep track of what was going on in the basic understanding of fire. He stated that “we can now take a single room, describe the furnishings, vents, openings, etc., and say ‘if the fire started there, what will happen’.”
In backing this statement, Emmons explained that “we have done this in eight fires that we ran (in his laboratories) and the calculations agreed reasonably well with what actually did happen.” He added that “we are beginning to understand what is going on,” andthat further downstream the policy-maker will really come into the picture.
Emmons visualized the day in which the present fire code statements such as “you must have a flame spread of 25, or whatever,” will be thrown away and “we can really state what we want.”
Workshops
Four afternoon workshops were held at the conference, directed to the volunteer, small cities, medium cities and large cities. Proceedings of the workshops as well as those of the other programs will be published.
