Hansen nominated for top USFA position
Jon Hansen, former assistant chief and a 26-year veteran of the Oklahoma City (OK) Fire Department, has been nominated by President Bush for the position of United States Fire Administration Administrator. As USFA Administrator, Hansen will coordinate the efforts of the National Emergency Training Center (NETC), the National Fire Data Center, the National Fire Academy, and the nation’s fire programs. He will report to the director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
During the wrenching days that followed the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Hansen served as the fire department’s liaison with the media. Since then, he testified before Congress numerous times on terrorism-related issues. While serving with the Oklahoma City Fire Department, he chaired the State Fire Marshal’s Commission, was president of the Oklahoma State Fire Chiefs, and was the recipient of the Fire Official of the Year Award in 1997.
Hansen currently is the general manager of Around the Clock American La France, an emergency vehicle and equipment retailer in Oklahoma City, and the manager of Hansen and Associates, a crisis communications and public relations firm.
New York City fire commissioner says radios not sufficiently tested
New York City Fire Commissioner Thomas Von Essen disarmed his critics recently when he stated that new digital radios purchased for the Fire Department of New York (FDNY) had not been sufficiently field tested in live-fire situations before being distributed to firefighters. He explained that in an effort to get the radios into firefighters’ hands quickly, enough time was not spent testing them in the field or training firefighters in their use, although the radios had been tested for quality, durability, and reliability.
Von Essen had recalled the radios from use on March 19 because of concerns raised when a firefighter in the basement of a burning building declared a “Mayday.” His call for help was not heard by other firefighters at the scene. The radios will undergo additional testing and reprogramming.
The Motorola hand-held, digital radios have been at the center of a controversy that has been raging between FDNY members and management. The firefighter and officer unions have charged that the fire department had put new hand-held radios into service without adequate testing. Management countered that testing done in training scenarios brought only a few complaints of echoes or a half-second delay in transmission-conditions that, management said, were typical among firefighters not familiar with digital technology. Fire department management had maintained that the radios are in need of reprogramming, not repairs. The city had paid about $18 million to purchase 3,818 hand-held radios for firefighters and ambulance crews.
Union officials, however, said that dozens of complaints have been received about the new radios, at least six of which arose the middle of March, when about 80 fire companies used the new radios in the field. The complaints, union officials added, went beyond the echo or delay problems cited by management. They cited reports of lost messages (among them two Maydays).
A spokesperson for Motorola attributed the difficulties over the new radios mainly to the fact that the firefighters were not accustomed to the different characteristics of digital technology. In fact, he noted that the issues of echoes and delays had been anticipated and that the department has addressed them in a training video on the new radios that was sent to every fire company in the city. Regarding the testing that began in March, he said reports of only a few lost messages were received. Eighty-one fires had been reported during that time.
(Sources: “Say Fire Dept. Ignored Concerns Over New Radios,” Kevin Flynn, New York Times, and “Blame Me for Radio Static,” Michael Saul, New York Daily News; Apr. 11, 2001; WCBS, New York, Mar. 22, 2001)
Brunacini recipient of Paul C. Lamb Award
Alan V. Brunacini, chief of the Phoenix (AZ) Fire Department and former chair of the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) board of directors, was named the 2001 recipient of the Paul C. Lamb Award, which recognizes board members and representatives from the standards councils who have rendered significant services to the NFPA. The award will be presented at the NFPA World Fire Safety Congress and ExpoT in Anaheim, California, on May 14.
A 42-year veteran of the fire service, Brunacini is the first firefighter to have served as NFPA board chair. He previously had served as a board member for 10 years. He is currently chair of the NFPA 1710 Technical Committee on Fire and Emergency Service Organization and Deployment-Career. He also was head of the NFPA 1500 Occupational Safety and Health Committee and, before that, chaired the NFPA Fire Service Section.
Brunacini has won various other awards, including Governing magazine’s Public Official of the Year in 1997. He was named one of Journal of Emergency Medical Services’ “20 of the Most Influential People in EMS” in July 2000 and was awarded Fire Engineering’s Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2001 FDIC in Indianapolis, Indiana.
Eversole receives Mason Lankford award
The Congressional Fire Services Institute and Motorola, Inc. have announced that Chief John Eversole, a 30-plus-year veteran of the fire service and district chief of special functions for the Chicago (IL) Fire Department, has been awarded the 2001 Mason Lankford Fire Service Leadership Award. The award was presented at the 13th Annual National Fire and Emergency Services Dinner held in Washington, D.C. in April.
Eversole has been instrumental in helping to develop legislation affecting the fire service, especially in the areas of hazardous materials, firefighter safety, and terrorism, and has testified before congressional committees on issues involving terrorist threats to our country and in preventing placing on the Internet “worst-case scenario” information on chemical sites.
The award, named after the late Mason Lankford of Denton, Texas, recognizes individual leadership in advancing fire service issues at all levels of government. Lankford, a former fire marshal from the state of Texas, helped to develop the Congressional Fire Services Institute and Congressional Fire Services Caucus.
NFPA: Arson in structures dropped in 1999
Arson in structures was down to the lowest level in 23 years-5 percent-according to a report recently released by the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA). Among other findings in the study are the following: Juvenile firesetters accounted for 54 percent of those arrested for arson; more than one-third of those arrested for arson were under the age of 15, and seven percent were under the age of 10; and property damage to structures and vehicles was $1.281 billion, an increase of 3 percent.
For additional information, contact Margie Coloian or Julie Reynolds at (617) 984-7275.
Legislation would guarantee grants for Pennsylvania volunteer fire and ambulance companies
Volunteer fire and ambulance companies would be guaranteed annual grants under legislation proposed by Pennsylvania State Senator Sean Logan. Senate Bill 409 would guarantee $15,000 for volunteer fire departments and $2,500 for volunteer ambulance companies each year.
Volunteer firefighters and ambulance service personnel save taxpayers billions of dollars, Logan noted. Reportedly, about 78,000 volunteers staff the state’s approximately 2,450 fire companies.
Logan is planning to introduce additional legislation for volunteer firefighters and ambulance service workers. Among his proposals will be education grants to attend an accredited Pennsylvania college or university, a volunteer firefighter license plate, and provisions for volunteer firefighters to have the state pay for firefighters to attend training seminars and to protect volunteers’ jobs while they attend the training seminars.
UEF conference focuses on performance-based fire regulations
Researchers, regulators, and designers from more than 10 countries explored the issues surrounding performance-based design methodologies for providing fire safety in buildings at the United Engineering Foundation (UEF) Conference in San Diego, California, in January. In addition to the United States, representatives from Japan, Canada, the United Kingdom, Finland, France, and Australia attended.
Researchers addressed topics related to the current state of the art in describing fire behavior, its effects on humans, and the ability of risk and reliability tools to express the level of safety in fire. Design professionals and regulators expressed their attitudes toward using these new methodologies in their jurisdictions.
Under the performance-based strategy, an objective-based formulation-a method to measure the desired level of fire safety that needs to be met by applying acceptable design tools-is adopted. These tools ideally will be firmly based on an understanding of the physics and chemistry of fire, human factors engineering, and risk and reliability methods. The significant advances made in the scientific understanding of fire over the past three decades and the parallel worldwide trend toward deregulating building control have been incentives to turn from traditional prescriptive practices to a more rational and organized design process.
Instead of using “experience-based” procedures designed to mitigate individual elements of the system, the objective of the new approach will be to solve the problems for the complete system, improving flexibility, stimulating innovation, and differentiating cost alternatives for the same level of performance.
Proceedings of the conference will be published by the Society of Fire Protection Engineers. For additional information, contact Professor Jim Quintiere, Department of Fire Protection Engineering, University of Maryland, (301) 405-3993 or Morgan Hurley, P.E., technical director, Society of Fire Protection Engineers, Bethesda, MD 20814; (301) 718-2910.
Department of Interior agencies ready to release $10 million to rural fire departments
Four agencies of the Department of the Interior (DOI) soon will distribute $10 million to rural fire departments. The money was allocated by Congress to the DOI fire agencies-Bureau of Land Management, National Park Service, Bureau of Indian Affairs, and Fish and Wildlife Service-in the 2001 Appropriations Bill and is intended “to enhance the fire protection capability of rural fire districts.” There is a ceiling of $20,000 per rural fire department. The funds are to be used only for training, equipment, and fire prevention work. The local department must be able to share a minimum of 10 percent of the total cost. In-kind services may be included as part of the cost sharing.
The money will be divided among the agencies; the agencies will distribute the money to their local offices, according to Bill Casey, the Bureau of Land Management lead for rural firefighting assistance. Field offices, working in conjunction with local partners, have developed a process for disbursing the money.
Rural fire departments interested in obtaining a grant should contact the closest office of the four DOI agencies. To participate in the program, the departments must meet several eligibility requirements: They must have a statewide agreement with the state forester who maintains cooperative agreements with the rural fire departments or volunteer fire departments or have a cooperative fire agreement with a DOI agency, and they must serve a community with a population of less than 10,000 and that is in a wildland-urban interface area.
The Department of Agriculture’s Forest Service has a long-standing, similar program (the Volunteer Fire Assistance Program) to assist rural fire departments. The DOI program is a pilot program that is part of a larger national fire plan to reduce wildfire risks in communities in the wildland urban interface. Congress has left open the option to allocate further funding to rural fire departments in the future. For more information, contact Jack Sept at the National Interagency Fire Center at (208) 387-5458.
New Jersey expands thermal imaging camera program
The New Jersey State Division of Fire Safety has purchased a thermal imaging camera (TIC) for each of its 19 fire training academies, according to William Kramer, the division’s deputy director. The cameras were distributed to the academies in mid-March. The state of New Jersey has almost 1,000 TICs on the streets, according to Kramer.
In 1999, the New Jersey State Legislature had appropriated $7.5 million to purchase TICs for fire departments in the state. It was the first program of its kind.
Since then, legislatures in a number of states have proposed similar programs.
(Source: “(NJ State’s thermal camera plan expanded,” Bill Bowman, Courier News, Apr. 2, 2001)
“One standard should replace OSHA safety regs”
All the government’s workplace safety regulations should be replaced by one single, tough standard, suggested Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill while speaking at a national conference on workplace safety recently. O’Neill noted that it would be better if Occupational Safety Health and Administration (OSHA) standards, including those pertaining to ergonomics, were made advisory.
In place of the individual standards, O’Neill explained that OSHA should let it be known that every public, private, and nonprofit organization in the United States “will have a lost workday rate under 2.0 within two years or have its license taken away” (two lost workdays every year per 100 full-time employees). O’Neill said the national average currently is about 3.5 lost workdays per 100 employees annually. O’Neill, praised by labor unions for his heavy emphasis on workers while he was the head of Alcoa Inc., predicted that between 95 percent and 98 percent of American companies would be able to meet that standard.
(Source: “O’Neill Offers New OSHA Standards, AP, NewsEdge Corporation, Apr. 2, 2001)
Fire at Plymouth (NH) State College leaves students homeless
A two-alarm fire that occurred the beginning of April left about 100 Plymouth (NH) State College students homeless. It took 21/2 hours for Plymouth firefighters and eight neighboring fire departments to bring the fire under control. A sprinkler system has been scheduled to be installed in the involved building this summer.
According to Plymouth Fire Chief Brian Thibeault, when firefighters arrived on the scene around 7 p.m., heavy flames were showing on the second floor of a nontraditional housing complex. An investigator with the State Fire Marshal’s Office was scheduled to visit the scene the next day to help local investigators determine the origin and cause of the fire.
A fire had occurred in another dormitory on campus in February. It was believed to have been started by a burning candle. No one was injured in either fire.
(Source: “Major fire strikes PSC dorm ellipse,” Bea Lewis, The (NH) Citizen, Apr. 2, 2001)
CFSI names 11 Legislators of the Year
The Congressional Fire Services Institute announced that the following members of Congress were selected as Legislators of the Year for 2001: Senators Mike DeWine (R-OH), Chris Dodd (D-CT), John McCain (R-AZ), Fritz Hollings (D-SC), John Warner (R-VA), and Carl Levin (D-MI) and Congressmen Curt Weldon (R-PA), Bill Pascrell (D-NJ), Steny Hoyer (D-MD), Floyd Spence ((R-SC), and Ike Skelton (D-MO). They are being honored for their contributions to the $100 million Assistance to Firefighters Grant Program. The presentations were made at the 13th Annual National Fire and Emergency Services Dinner in Washington, D.C. in April.
Senators DeWine and Dodd introduced the Fire Investment and Response Enhancement (FIRE) Act in the Senate, the bill that formed the foundation of the grant program; guided the bill through the Senate; guaranteed a hearing for it; and had it attached to the Defense Reauthorization Act, legislation Congress was compelled to address.
Senators McCain and Hollings, chairman and ranking member of the Senate Science Committee, respectively, played a significant role in crafting the measure into the final version so that it would be acceptable to all committee members.
Senators Warner and Levin, chairman and ranking member respectively, of the Senate Armed Services Committee, permitted the legislation to be included in the Defense bill, keeping the measure alive.
From the House of Representatives, Representative Pascrell authored the FIRE Act, recruited cosponsors for the measure, and encouraged the fire service to become involved in the legislative process.
Congressman Weldon played a pivotal role in negotiating changes to the measure-including adding provisions addressing burn research and the Volunteer Fire Assistance Program-to win support from the Republican leadership. Congressman Hoyer served as a liaison between the House and the Senate, as well as between Democrats and Republicans. They were major influences in securing the $100 million for this fiscal year’s program.
Congressmen Spence and Skelton, chairman and ranking member, respectively, of the House Armed Services Committee, worked closely with their Senate counterparts to insert the FIRE Act in the Defense bill.
