NFPA Journal - January/February 2020 - 16

Dispatches Ecosystem Watch

THE ECOSYSTEM EXPLAINED
NFPA believes that fire, life, and electrical safety are only
possible when a safety ecosystem exists to create a culture
of best practices and stakeholder accountability. To that end,
the NFPA Fire & Life Safety Ecosystem is made up of eight key
elements: government responsibility, development and use
of current codes, referenced standards, investment in safety,
a skilled workforce, code compliance, preparedness and
emergency response, and an informed public. NFPA envisions
those components as cogs working together-when one cog
fails, the entire system can break down. The items below,
taken from recent news events, represent a survey of ecosystem successes and failures. For more on the NFPA Fire &
Life Safety Ecosystem, visit nfpa.org/ecosystem.

INFORMED
PUBLIC

FACEBOOK FOLLY
After a Boston restaurant
closes for reported code
violations, members of the
public voice frustrations over
code enforcement on social
media. "You people siding
with the [fire] inspector ... are
exactly what's wrong with
Massachusetts," one man writes
on Facebook. "If you only knew
how much actual Americans
hate people like you."

GOVERNMENT
RESPONSIBILITY

CUTTING CORNERS
In rebuilding Paradise, California,
after the devastating Camp Fire
razed much of the town in
November 2018, officials
reject enacting a new ban on
combustible materials within five
feet of residents' homes, as well as
other recommended wildfire
mitigation practices, in the
interest of rebuilding the town
faster and at a lower cost.

ECOSYSTEM FAIL

PREPAREDNESS
AND EMERGENCY
RESPONSE

INVESTMENT IN
SAFETY

PREPAREDNESS
AND EMERGENCY
RESPONSE

CODE
COMPLIANCE

ECOSYSTEM SUCCESS

ALZHEIMER'S AWARE
Two fire departments in Indiana become
the first in the state to require dementia
training for its members. Experts say
first responders across the United States
will experience an increasing number of
interactions with people with dementia as
the country's elderly population grows.

ECOSYSTEM SUCCESS

16 | NFPA JOURNAL * J A N U A R Y / F E B R U A R Y 2 0 2 0

DOOR DANGER
Building surveyors in the
UK uncover rampant code
violations after conducting a
survey on fire doors in highrise apartment buildings
similar to Grenfell Tower.
"Every single one of the
fire doors we inspected
was noncompliant," says
one of the surveyors.

ECOSYSTEM FAIL

FAILURE HEADS UP
Two of California's largest
utilities, Pacific Gas & Electric
and Southern California
Edison, test a new technology
developed by Texas A&M
researchers that detects
variations in the electrical
currents of power lines,
potentially alerting officials
to failures before they occur.
Power line failures have been
blamed for several massively
destructive wildfires in
California in recent years.

ECOSYSTEM SUCCESS

GETT Y IMAGES

AUSSIE ALERTS
"More nuanced, more targeted,
and better-timed" emergency
alerts are credited with saving
lives as massive wildfires tore
through Australia in November
and December, the Washington
Post reports. The country made
sweeping improvements to
its wildfire emergency alert
system after wildland blazes
killed scores in 2009.

http://www.nfpa.org/ecosystem http://www.nfpa.org/ecosystem

NFPA Journal - January/February 2020

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of NFPA Journal - January/February 2020