NFPA Journal - Fall 2021 - 56

The to-do list is long and varied. An
increase in home cooking fires and
cooking fire deaths compared to the
1980s suggest research opportunities
and more urgent public education
efforts. A third of all fatal home fire
victims in the US are 65 or older,
and research is necessary to better
understand how to protect our most
vulnerable citizens. Research is also
necessary to measure the impact
of new smoke alarm technology on
unwanted alarms and reported as well
as unreported fires. Wildfire's impact
on communities must be addressed
using the holistic approach of the
NFPA Fire & Life Safety Ecosystem™
.
Similarly, a holistic approach to fire
safety and energy efficiency is needed
to ensure that new products and technologies
that are developed to mitigate
challenges do not result in unintended
fire risk. Product standards need to be
developed or updated for consumer
electronics that use potentially hazardous
new technologies, and consumers
must be educated on possible risks.
And efforts to educate the public on
how to protect themselves from fire
must be expanded to reduce fatalities
and increase life safety.
Birgitte Messerschmidt, director of
applied research at NFPA and one of the
report's two authors, sees the findings
as the starting point for an important
discussion on safety and resilience in
the built environment, especially homes.
" I've spent 25 years working in fire safety,
trying to make our built environment
more fire-safe, and I'm extremely passionate
about it, " she said. " What we need
is a more holistic way of thinking about
our buildings and how we can improve
our level of safety inside those buildings.
We've demonstrated over and over in
many different types of buildings that
we can keep people safe if something
goes wrong, yet we continue to encounter
challenges to achieving that level of
safety in our own homes. If we are truly
serious about further reducing this country's
fire problem, that has to change. "
ROOTS IN " AMERICA BURNING "
" Fire Safety in the United States Since
1980 " is a direct descendant of " America
Burning, " the landmark 1973 study
56 | NFPA JOURNAL * FALL 2021
that ushered in the modern era of fire
safety. Written by the National Commission
on Fire Prevention and Control,
" America Burning " set out to evaluate
the scope of the nation's fire problem
and to make recommendations on steps
that would reduce loss and improve
safety for citizens as well as the fire service.
The report estimated civilian and
firefighter fire deaths at about 12,000
annually, with
another 300,000
injuries-those
figures were later
revised to about
6,200 and 100,000,
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FIREPROGRESS
Read the entire
" Fire Safety
in the United
States " report.
respectively-and decried fire's impact
on the country's poorest and most vulnerable
populations.
That streak of outrage runs through
much of " America Burning " and contributes
to the activist tone of the
report and the authors' unsparing condemnations.
" Appallingly, the richest
and most technologically advanced
nation in the world leads all the major
industrialized countries in per capita
deaths and property loss from fire, "
they wrote. " America's poor fire record,
and its failure to marshal enough
scientific and monetary resources to
improve the record, concerns those who
work in the field of fire protection...
[and who] have run against the twin
tides of ignorance and indifference-
tides which contribute substantially to
the extraordinary magnitude of the fire
problem in the United States. "
" America Burning " recommended an
expanded emphasis on fire prevention,
especially through public education;
improved training and education for
the fire service; improved fire safety
education for citizens; a more proactive
approach to eliminating safety
hazards presented by the design and
materials used in people's homes and
workplaces, including testing and
labeling; improved fire protection features
for buildings; and an expanded
research effort to better understand
fire-related hazards-in short, the
seeds of what would become the NFPA
Fire & Life Safety Ecosystem, a holistic
way of defining, evaluating, and
addressing fire and life safety hazards.
The report also recommended the
creation of the US Fire Administration
(USFA), which would provide federal
oversight and resources to address the
nation's fire problem.
The commission identified a variety
of responsibilities for the USFA,
and two in particular would inform
the 40-year study undertaken by
the new NFPA report. One of those
USFA charges was the development
of a comprehensive national fire data
system that would " help establish
priorities for research and action, "
according to " America Burning " -a
system that by 1980 was becoming
more sophisticated and detailed. The
other important USFA action was to
support the creation of an automatic
fire sprinkler that could be used in a
variety of residential dwelling types.
As it happened, the release of " America
Burning " coincided with NFPA's
appointment of a subcommittee to
develop a standard for automatic sprinklers
for one- and two-family homes;
in 1975, the first edition of NFPA 13D,
Standard for the Installation of Sprinkler
Systems in One- and Two-Family
Dwellings and Manufactured Homes,
was published. The second edition of
NFPA 13D was released in 1980 and
was heavily revised based on new field
tests and extensive research. In 1981,
UL approved Grinnell's Model F954
sprinkler, making it the first listed
residential sprinkler. The home fire
sprinkler era had begun.
For NFPA researchers, those signal
events offered a logical starting point
for a new study focused on home fires.
" With nearly 40 years of data to draw
from, we saw this as an important
moment to look back and see what that
data could tell us, " said Marty Ahrens,
manager of fire analysis services at
NFPA and co-author of the " Fire Safety
in the United States Since 1980 " report.
The new report, produced with the
support of the Fire Protection Research
Foundation, is an up-close look at home
structure fires, including apartments
and manufactured homes, that draws
on fire data from 1980 to 2018, the
most recent year data was available.
The report also examines fire safety in
hospitals and nursing homes and looks
at home structure fires in the context
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NFPA Journal - Fall 2021

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