Projects and Programs

The Public-Private Fire Safety Council Challenge:

To Eliminate Residential Fire Deaths by 2020

In support of a national effort to eliminate residential fire deaths by the year 2020, Congress appropriated $5 million in fiscal year 2002 to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) and the U.S. Fire Administration (USFA) for a new fire safety campaign targeting the elimination of residential fire deaths. To help meet the challenge of eliminating residential fire deaths by 2020, the three agencies partnered with other Federal agencies and non-government organizations notable for their work in fire prevention, forming the Public-Private Fire Safety Council.

The Council has initiated activities related to surveillance, research, community programs and marketing. Current activities include:

• Developing and piloting a public education campaign called Personal Responsibility. This campaign is aimed at changing public opinion about the idea that residential fires are "accidents" that can't be prevented and to begin thinking about what each person can do to prevent fires in their own homes.
• Expanding the CDC Smoke Alarm and Fire Safety Education Program. Since 1998, CDC has funded smoke alarm installation and fire safety education programs in high-risk communities, targeting especially households with children ages five years and younger and adults ages 65 years and older. As part of the Fire Safety Council activities, CDC has expanded the program to include an additional three states.
• Conducting a national survey on risk factors, causes, and outcomes related to residential fire-related injuries. CDC is directing the development of the National Fire Risk Factor Survey (NFRFS) to obtain nationally representative data on risk factors for residential fire-related injury and to define which population groups are most affected. NFRFS is a telephone-based survey being developed with the Battelle Centers for Public Health Research and Evaluation. NFRFS will gather data on fire-related injury risk factors, such as smoking, and protective factors, such as regular maintenance of smoke alarms. Such risk factors occur early in the causal chain of injury, so injury control programs may improve the prevention of fire-related injuries by targeting them. Understanding the level of fire-injury risk factors in a population is also a valuable way to help state and local fire-injury control programs set priorities and guide evaluation of interventions and program performance. Additionally, NFRFS will gather information from households that have had fires recently. Population-based data will show the number of uncontrolled fires, their causes, and the number injured, and the attitudes, knowledge, and behaviors of those affected.
• Collecting more detailed information about fire related deaths and serious injuries. The data collected will be used by CPSC to prevent deaths and injuries by recalling hazardous products and will also be used to work with manufacturers to ensure safe product designs. The USFA will use the information to help establish priorities for public fire education programs. The CPSC has obtained death certificates from each state and has matched the information to fire incidents reported to the USFA by fire departments participating the USFA's National Fire Incident Reporting System (NFIRS). Staff members review the combined data from each incident and contact local fire or police agencies to obtain information that may be missing, or update information for those incidents where fire causes were initially reported as unknown. Injury data from the CPSC's National Electronic Injury Surveillance System (NEISS), a national probability sample of hospitals in the U.S., is matched with NFIRS records and this combined data set is also updated through contacts with local officials. The enhanced data set will provide much greater detail for analyzing death and serious injuries due to fire.
• Collecting and analyzing data to track trends and progress using the Injury Control and Risk Survey (ICARIS), the National Health Interview Survey (NHIS), Vital Statistics data, the National Electronic Injury Surveillance System - All Injury Program (NEISS-AIP), and the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS).
• Examining the potential of a community-based Civilian Fire Safety Corps, whose primary purpose is to conduct fire safety education
• Assessing the effectiveness of fire safety programs and initiatives that Federal agencies have traditionally funded
• Distributing public education materials.
• Sponsoring the web site FireSafety.gov, a one-stop information resource on the Internet for residential fire safety and prevention information distributed by the Federal government.

In addition to CDC, CPSC and USFA, the Public-Private Fire Safety Council consists of the following organizations:

• American Burn Association
• American Insurance Association
• American Red Cross
• Congressional Fire Services Institute
• Home Safety Council
• International Association of Fire Chiefs
• International Fire Marshals Association
• National Association of State Fire Marshals
• National Fire Protection Association
• National SAFE KIDS Campaign
• Underwriters Laboratory
• U.S. Department of Health and Human Services/Indian Health Service
• U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development