Fire Prevention

More importantly, why do we--Yes, WE in the fire service--continue to view residential sprinklers as a "threat to our way of life" rather than as the only true lifesaving weapon in our battle against fire? Why do we keep pursuing better equipment and protective clothing and SCBA to fight fires in dwellings that become more hazardous to our health and safety every year?

In the Union City case, it took approximately 60 days to get from the first meeting—involving the Fire Department leadership, the Mayor, and City Council—to the adoption of the city-wide ordinance requiring the installation of HEHLT on all electric-coil cooking devices located in all tax-supported housing, apartments, triplexes, residential board and care occupancies, small nursing homes, convalescent homes, assisted-living occupancies within the Union City.

One such example is the web-based inspection report management system movement. Using a web-based, or “cloud” platform, these systems are opening up solutions for service providers and local government.

Why do we continue to "hold on to" a fire protection model that is "overloaded" with risk and expensive to operate? There is a better way, but it's a way that requires a fundamental shift in responsibility in our society: the individual is responsible for not having a fire, rather than the locality is responsible for putting out a fire when it occurs. Fire service leaders and local political leaders need to "re-engineer" the fire protection model for their communities using the "Three E's": Engineering, Education, and Enforcement.

Using our limited resources, we must promote the use of this technology that doesn’t just extinguish a fire after it starts, like a hood system or sprinkler system, but actually prevents the fire from starting at all!

I’m going to share technology with you that has been designed, manufactured, rigorously tested by the appropriate testing agencies, approved and put in the field to make elimination of stove top cooking fires a reality in our lifetime.

Consider for a moment what has happened since 9/11 to fight the “war on terror” — creation of DHS and TSA, hundreds of billions of dollars spent, laws adopted and changed, new training, new equipment, and new ways to do our jobs. With all that and more, we’ve not suffered a single terrorist-related death or injury on United States soil since that day. We have, however, lost a “city” of 30,966 people (total U.S. fire deaths for 2002-2011) in that same period.