How many Americans have lost their lives on U.S. soil since September 11, 2001?  The answer is ZERO.  How many Americans have lost their lives in fires, more than 80% of which happened in residential dwellings, since September 11, 2001?  On average, close to 4,000 Americans lost their lives in 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004…2007; don’t bet any money on the number being much lower when 2008 comes to a close.

Since the awful events of 9/11/01 at the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and Shanksville, Pennsylvania, where close to 4,000 of our fellow Americans lost their lives in a single day, our federal government has spent hundreds of billions of dollars funding anti-terrorism efforts.  Our federal government created a whole new bureaucracy, the Department of Homeland Security, the largest federal agency in the history of the republic.

Maybe all that money has been well spent, if we look at the outcome—zero Americans killed by terrorists since 9/11/01.  But maybe all that money hasn’t made a difference; perhaps those terrible deaths on September 11 were more the result of  complacency by our leaders and the bureaucracies that were already in place that day to protect us.  Just give it a thought: the number of deaths by international terrorism was zero before that day and has been zero since that day. (Don’t forget our brothers and sisters who perished at the hands of that domestic terrorist in Oklahoma City.  I know his name and so do you, but I’ll not give such a wretch more publicity in my blog.)

As far back as 1947 we’ve known that fire was a plague on the republic.  President Harry S Truman appointed a committee to study the fire problem and recommend how to address it.

“The serious losses in life and property resulting annually from fires cause me deep concern.  I am sure that such unnecessary waste can be reduced.  The substantial progress made in the science of fire prevention and fire protection in this country during the past forty years convinces me that the means are available for limiting this unnecessary destruction.”

-----Harry S Truman

That report stated that America needed a more focused approach, i.e., a federally coordinated focus, in addressing the terrible consequences of fire in the United States.  The report further stated:

Fire prevention and accident prevention employ same technique. – Over the years, the approaches to the accident problem have been popularly designated as the Three E’s of Safety – Engineering, Enforcement, and Education.  These “Three E’s” are equally applicable to fire prevention and protection.

We didn’t make much progress after that because beginning in 1966, the Johnson Foundation sponsored a national symposium named Wingspread that examined the fire problem in America in depth and came to the same conclusions.  That reported echoed that of the 1947 Presidential Report: We have a fire problem and we need a federal focus to address that problem.  Wingspread became known as Wingspread I when the effort was repeated ten years later in 1976 with Wingspread II;  Wingspread III followed in 1986, IV in 1996, and V in 2003. Each report has basically had the same theme as the Truman report issued 61 years ago: we have thousands of people unnecessarily dying and billions of dollars worth of property being destroyed each year by fires that we know how to prevent.  And we call ourselves the most technologically advanced country in the world?

How much funding has our federal government given to efforts to prevent 4,000 Americans from dying each year at the hands of hostile fires?  I can tell you it’s not in the hundreds of billions of dollars, that’s for sure.  In fact, it’s only been since 2001 that our federal government has been using our tax dollars to help The Assistance to Firefighters Grant Program (AFG) has helped America’s firefighters—career and volunteer alike—pay for the necessary equipment and vehicles and training to safely, efficiently, and effectively protect our communities from the ravages of fire.

In 2001, 1886 departments received a total of $97 million in one-year grants; that total rose to $605 million in 2005 with 5966 departments receiving grants.  The Staffing for Adequate Fire and Emergency Response (SAFER) grants have provided departments with grants to hire additional firefighters and recruit and retain volunteer firefighters; in 2007 those grants amounted to $707 million.  Notice that these grants are measured in millions of dollars annually; the war in Iraq is costing our country 10 billion dollars a month.

The current administration in Washington, D.C., has tried to cut funding for the AFG and SAFER programs every year; those proposed cuts have been defeated by the Congress, but the amount has been reduced each year.  Between now and Election Day in November, find out where our candidates for federal office—President, Senate, and House of Representatives—stand on eradicating fire deaths and destruction from the American landscape. 

Where do you stand on preventing fires?