Letters to the Editor
In Support of USFA
Harrisburg, Pa.:
I want to compliment you on your editorial in the October issue. You are right on target.
As a 30-year veteran of the wildfire service, I have been appalled at the lack of unified support for the USFA and the fire academy. For years we have pleaded for a national focus on the fire problem. Now that it is a reality, various individuals within the fire service seem committed to its destruction.
Certainly there are problems within USFA, but collectively we should be identifying them and planning to solve them, rather than using this as a reason to scuttle the program.
If the fire administration and all it stands for is destroyed, you and I will not see another national effort to get on top of the fire problem in our lifetime.
E. F. McNamara, Chief
Division of Forest Fire Program
Department of Environmental Resources
Commonwealth of Pennsylvania
September Issue Outstanding
Washington, D.C.:
This is just a short note to tell you that I thought your September issue was outstanding. Article after article had practical information aimed at reducing the major fire problems. I found especially useful the articles on arson in Dallas, beauty shop hazards, smoke detectors, slide shows for telling the public about hazards, and the San Clemente sprinkler use.
Keep up the good work, and let us know if there is fire data we can help you with.
Philip S. Schaenman
Associate Administrator
National Fire Data Center
United States Fire Administration
Self-Extinguishing Cigarette
East Camden, Ark.:
I feel we in the fire service are completely missing the mark with the crusade for a self-extinguishing cigarette.
By advocating a self-extinguishing cigarette, we are admitting failure in one aspect of our fire prevention effort. We are saying to society that we give up trying to change the source of the problem (people’s careless acts) and are going to retreat to treating a symptom.
We are admitting that the task is greater than we can handle and are asking the government to “hold the public’s hand” once again. Our efforts seem to be directed at removing the individual’s responsibility for his or her own actions and allowing government to assume the role of the only one capable of rational thought and action. I firmly believe this is NOT the role of government.
If we were to expend as much effort and money toward changing the behavior of people as we do toward promulgating volumes of regulations, I believe the results would be far greater.
R. Craig Schroll
