On June 14 the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) will hold a Technical Meeting in Las Vegas, NV, to consider Certified Amending Motions for NFPA Standards processed in the Fall 2017 and Annual 2018 revision cycles. Two such motions filed to amend NFPA 1001: Standard on Fire Fighter Professional Qualifications would add new skills related to community risk reduction (CRR) to the baseline knowledge that firefighters must have under the 1001 standard.
The NVFC opposes these motions on the grounds that they are inappropriate for the 1001 document and would add unnecessary time and expense to basic firefighter training. The main problematic motion would add the following skills under Chapter 4 of NFPA 1001:
“…ability to distinguish among different CRR strategies (i.e. emergency response, engineering, enforcement, education and economic incentives) when provided examples of each; and to perform simple public education activities from standard operating procedures, methods, and materials provided by the AHJ…”
“…the ability to conduct a home safety visit when called upon to do so by the AHJ, to install smoke alarms per NFPA 72 and/or the standards of the AHJ, and to answer simple questions about home safety hazards given standard training approved by the AHJ.”
The following is an open letter from NVFC Chair Kevin D. Quinn explaining the NVFC position on these motions:
On behalf of the National Volunteer Fire Council (NVFC), which represents the interests of the nation’s volunteer fire, EMS, and rescue services, I am writing in opposition to Certified Amending Motion 1001-1 and 1001-3, which would add language related to community risk reduction (CRR) public education delivery and smoke alarm installation to the NFPA 1001 document.
To be clear, the NVFC strongly supports and actively promotes CRR. We simply do not believe that the proposed language is appropriate for the NFPA 1001 document, which identifies minimum job performance requirements (JPRs) for career and volunteer structural firefighters. The purpose of the 1001 document is to ensure that people meeting the requirements of the standard are qualified to fight fire. Public education and smoke alarm installation are critical services that many fire departments deliver, but they are not baseline skills that every firefighter needs to have. Adding this language to the document would add unnecessary time and expense to basic firefighter training and make it harder for people to get certified.
There are already skills related to public education in the 1001 document for personnel who are trained to the Fire Fighter II level. The NFPA 1035 document identifies the minimum JPRs for public fire and life safety educators. The NFPA 1300 document, which the NVFC is helping to develop, will establish a standard on community risk assessment and community risk reduction plan development. There is language dealing with CRR currently in NFPA 1021, the professional qualifications standard for fire officers, and new language that has been proposed to be added in the current revision cycle. The NVFC rep on the 1021 technical committee has voted in favor of these changes. CRR is critical, it belongs in NFPA documents, and it is in a number of NFPA documents already, with the NVFC’s support. This proposal simply goes too far.
In addition to supporting CRR in NFPA standards, the NVFC encourages fire departments to engage in CRR activities. We work closely with Vision 20/20 to share valuable resources on implementing and maintaining CRR programs with the volunteer fire service. The NVFC’s Fire Corps program has been helping fire departments for more than a decade recruit community volunteers to build the capacity of local agencies by performing non-operational tasks, including CRR activities.
Most firefighters do not deliver public education or install smoke alarms. Smaller jurisdictions often use programs like Fire Corps to implement CRR programs, which allows volunteer firefighters to focus on training and responding to emergencies. In fire departments that use firefighters to perform CRR, it is often the case that only some personnel are involved, and they typically receive special training and certification that goes beyond the skills proposed in the amending motion.
Requiring all firefighters to be proficient in skills that most will never use is a waste of time and resources. For smaller agencies in rural areas, getting people trained and certified can be a challenge. Finding volunteers who are willing to train for free so that they can respond to emergencies, also for free, gets harder as training requirements increase. This is particularly true if the training that people are expected to engage in is unrelated to the duties that they will be asked to perform as firefighters.
In every revision cycle, the 1001 document gets longer as more skills are added, leading to more training for firefighters pursuing certification. New skills are added to the document after consideration by the technical committee, which evaluates each proposal that is submitted and determines what is appropriate, balancing all interests involved. In this particular instance, the technical committee — made up of individuals representing a broad range of fire service interests — unanimously rejected a slew of proposals to add different CRR skills to the 1001 document. The technical committee made a wise decision in not accepting the CRR proposals that were submitted, and I urge the membership here to support the technical committee and to vote against Certified Amending Motions 1001-1 and 1001-3.
Sincerely,
Kevin D. Quinn, Chair
National Volunteer Fire Council
