America Burning Impact

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FST-107-Fire Prevention Changing a Nation: Impact of “America Burning” on Fire Prevention in America Devan Brower 3-20-2016 In 1973, one of the most influential reports to ever come out of the fire service was created. This report would change the fire service forever and still to this day have a great impact on the way things are done in the fire service. One of the most impacted sectors within the fire service is the way firefighters perceive and implement fire prevention strategies and techniques. This report was called “America Burning” and was published by the National Commission on Fire Prevention and Control. The report was sent directly to the president of the United States of America, who at the current time was Richard …show more content…

There were some programs out there that were great and there were other places where training was almost non-existent. Many times the programs or communities with very poor training practices were communities that lacked the financial resources to provide their firefighters with good training. The commission proposed that there should be a national fire academy set up so that there would be a minimum standard nationwide on the level of training that firefighters would be receiving. They proposed that many resource lacking communities could immensely improve the quality of their training programs with very little cost increase to the community. The purpose of the academy would be to assist local and state training programs and make sure that proper training was available to all firefighters across the country from all types of communities. By setting up a National Fire Academy the commission believed they could reduce firefighter injuries and deaths, as well as produce more effective and efficient personnel to fight …show more content…

Fire safety education is a crucial aspect of fire prevention. The general public needs to know how big of a threat fire is to them and how they can do things in their everyday lives to improve their safety, as well as preventing the threat of fire to begin with. The commission also realized that it was critically important that people know how to properly act once a fire has started. It is important that people have the knowledge to act quickly, safely, and effectively. When people don’t understand fire they can react in many negative ways such as panicking, not evacuating effectively, or by trying to fight a fire that they are not going to be able to extinguish. All these human reactions can decrease safety and end with tragic results. In the commission’s report they approximate that nearly 70 percent of all building fires were due to people acting carelessly because they did not understand the fire dangers that were present. The commission cited studies like one conducted in southeast Missouri. In the southeast Missouri community, a huge emphasis was put into public fire safety education because the fire death rate of the community was much higher than the national average. After increasing fire safety education in the community it was no surprise that the rate of deaths and injuries decreased

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