BY BOBBY HALTON
I recently received a letter from a friend who accused me of having a “suppression mentality.” He is right—I do. My buddy feels I am contributing to the fire service’s obsession with operations; again, guilty as charged. He feels I am not doing enough to support and promote community fire protection—again, guilty, but I am trying to do better there. To support his position, he cited our American firefighter and civilian fire death statistics as proof that we place too much emphasis on operations and not enough on prevention. He also stated we should look to the Europeans for leadership. He is only partially right. The answer to the American fire problem is not solely in prevention and education. We will not find all the answers in Europe, nor is the answer purely operational. Rather, the answers are in a balanced approach to prevention and suppression and an open exchange of what is being done well and the types of fires and buildings where it is being done.
As to my supporting a suppression mentality, I will offer no apologies. It is my deepest hope that in some minor way my efforts will help to ensure that firefighters consider extinguishing the fire as usually the most important lifesaving function. If we look closely at our statistics, it is very apparent we are doing better everywhere in the American fire service since the creation of the United States Fire Administration (USFA). We can boast of continuous improvement in almost every aspect of our professionsomething educated European firefighters admire about America.
The fact is that America does have a high death rate for civilians caught in structure fires; it is largely the result of how our structures are made and the stuff with which we fill them. The other undeniable truths are that we have improved in community fire protection and we are dedicated to doing better in public education, code enforcement, inspections, and code development. Over the past 10 years, we have responded to approximately 1,800,000 fires annually, at which, tragically, 4,000 civilians died each year. The American fire service loses around 100 firefighters associated with responding to these fires. Some folks estimate the property loss to be around $10 billion a year; but to us, firefighters, that is inconsequential compared with lost lives.
Roughly 30 years ago, the USFA established a goal to reduce civilian fatalities by 50 percent in 25 years. It was done. Is there more progress to be made? You betthe American way, through continuous unrelenting obsession with improvement. There are no silver bullets out there; improvement comes from hard work, trial and error, and persistence. As for our European counterparts, it is tough to compare the United States with other countries when discussing statistics. Basically, our fire problems are very different (our country is so large and our fire service is so local in nature).
In 2006, we were ranked with the fourth highest civilian fire death rate of the 25 industrialized countries studied by the World Fire Statistics Centre. We have a national death rate for the reporting period 2001 to 2003 of 17.1 deaths per million. It is important to note that 10 states account for half the American civilian fire deaths.
Oddly, the country with which so many often compare us is Sweden. I feel the best way to measure competency is to compare the civilian death rate. I assert that we exist to serve the public and that protecting life is our primary purpose for being. It is an interesting comparison between the United States and Sweden. The total population of Sweden is approximately nine million, with a civilian death rate in fires of 16.0 per million for the reporting period of 2001 to 2003 vs. the United States at 17.1. Now, America has almost 300 million people and is dozens of times larger than Sweden. So let’s compare Sweden with a state that is closer to it in size. Sweden’s total land mass is about that of California, where 37 million Americans live, four times Sweden’s population. However, California has a civilian death rate of 8.1 per million, half that of Sweden’s.
The Swedes have not experienced a line-of-duty death in six years. We average 30 deaths a year attributed to firefighting. We have 1.6 million firefighters; Sweden has 16,000. What does that tell you? Nothing. That’s right, nothing. It is comparing apples and oranges. There are so many differences in construction, number of fires, population, data collection styles, and so on.
The point is, we are doing better, and we can prove it. Heart attacks are down, driving deaths are lower, and there are fewer civilian deaths. American firefighters are very self-critical, but we are improving constantly in almost every aspect of our profession but onethe death rate of firefighters conducting interior operations. In every other category, we have improved. That is why I am obsessed with suppression; it is where we need to accelerate our efforts toward improvement.
Can we learn from other countries? Absolutely. Sweden has done an outstanding job of looking critically at fire gases and extreme fire behavior. Is Sweden’s way perfect? No, and neither is ours. It is by using all the tools and reviewing all the knowledge that we move toward continuous improvement, not in hunting for silver bullets. All options need examination; every piece of information has value. Let’s keep focused on our “work,” our citizens, and the things we can change.
