The International Society of Fire Service Instructors (ISFSI) and the Underwriters Laboratories Firefighter Safety Research Institute (UL FSRI) will be co-recipients of the Senate Paul S. Sarbanes Fire Service Safety Leadership Award, which will be presented at the 30th Annual National Fire and Emergency Services Dinner on April 19, 2018, in Washington, DC.
For the past 10 years, UL FSRI has been conducting important research on fire behavior in the built environment. Leveraging the findings from this research, ISFSI developed a new training curriculum that is changing the tactics fire departments have historically used to fight structure fires. The Principles of Modern Fire Attack curriculum has been taught to more than 14,000 firefighters in the classroom and has had more than 200,000 full-length views of the training videos since the program was established in 2015.
Improving trauma care to reduce preventable deaths
Trauma experts from across the country met in December to discuss how to decrease the number of deaths caused by traumatic injuries in the United States. The session, moderated by Jon Krohmer, MD, director of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, Office of EMS, was held in response to the report, “A National Trauma Care System: Integrating Military and Civilian Trauma Systems to Achieve Zero Preventable Deaths After Injury,” released by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine (NASEM).
Among the recommendations in the NASEM report is that “prehospital care (emergency medical services) be viewed as a seamless component of health care delivery rather than merely a transport mechanism.” The report also advocates that trauma care teams and their supporters be given “real-time access to patient-level data and just-in-time access to high-quality knowledge” and that the “common data of military and civilian trauma systems spanning the entire continuum of care” be collected and shared.
It was further suggested that prehospital and hospital data be linked to medical examiner data to determine which deaths were “preventable” and to “further analyze the care provided.”
The Federal Interagency Committee on EMS, representatives of several federal agencies, approved at its most recent meeting the sending of a letter to Thomas Bossert, President Donald Trump’s homeland security advisor, requesting a meeting to discuss the issues raised in the study.
The full report is available at http://www.nationalacademies.org/hmd/Reports/2016/A-National-Trauma-Care-System-Integrating-Military-and-Civilian-Trauma-Systems.aspx.
NFPA fast-tracks standard for active shooter response
The National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) has announced that it is processing NFPA 3000, Standard for Preparedness and Response to Active Shooter and/or Hostile Events, as a provisional standard and that it may be available in April.
The NFPA explains that “the tragic trend of hostile events in the United States prompted the Standards Council to process NFPA 3000 as a provisional standard because of the serious life safety concern presented by active shooter and other hostile events.”
Shortly after the Pulse Nightclub incident in October 2016, the NFPA established a Technical Committee comprised of representatives from the Department of Homeland Security; Department of Justice; the Federal Bureau of Investigation; National Security Agency; national police, fire, and emergency medical service organizations; hospitals; private security; and universities. A fact sheet on NFPA 3000 is available at https://www.nfpa.org/-/media/Files/Code-or-topic-fact-sheets/NFPA3000FactSheet.pdf/.
Globe Gear provides gear for 13 volunteer departments
Globe and DuPont Protection Solutions, in partnership with the National Volunteer Fire Council (NVFC), awarded 52 sets of turnout gear to 13 fire departments in 2017 through the Globe Gear Giveaway, a program that assists volunteer fire departments with limited budgets to maintain adequate protection for their personnel. More than 870 departments applied for the gear in 2017.
The 2017 Globe Gear Giveaway recipients are Buffalo (KY) Fire Department, Cherokee Volunteer Fire Department, AL; Graniteville (CA) Volunteer Fire/Rescue, Gustavus (AK) Volunteer Fire Department, Island Heights (NJ) Volunteer Fire Company, Latir (NM) Volunteer Fire Department, Lewis Township (IN) Volunteer Fire Company, Louise Fire Department (MB, Canada), Lowell (VT) Volunteer Fire Department, Princeville (NC) Volunteer Fire Department, Pulaski Township (PA) Volunteer Fire Department, Tanglewood (TX) Volunteer Fire Department, and Tuscumbia (MO) Fire Protection District.
The 2018 Globe Gear Giveaway application period opened in February. Details are at www.nvfc.org.
