"A ceiling collapses killing two firefighters," "An unseen propane tank explodes during a fire killing one firefighter and injuring one other," "A driver loses control of his vehicle colliding with an accident scene killing the rescue crew," "Firefighter dies of heart attack while on duty;" These headlines are all tragic and all too familiar to most of us. Most of them we chalk up to part of the job. What we do is dangerous and sometimes we die doing it. I'm not going to debate or discuss what could have been done or what we are doing to prevent these headlines; with the exception of one.

I am as passionate about fire safety education as I am firefighter safety. The reality is they accomplish the same thing. The 16 Firefighter Life Safety Initiatives are in no specific order of importance, but I've decided to focus on #14 now after we experienced six fire fatalities on New Year's Day here in Washington, DC. Across the nation, multi-fatality fires are nothing new. There must be a sense of urgency in the fire service on this issue - enough is enough.

The United States Fire Administration National Fire Data Center reports that "for a ten year period, 1997-2006, 23.5% of on-duty firefighter fatalities occurred at the scene of structure fires." This significant percentage of firefighter fatalities deserves the close attention of every active firefighter in the country.

The application period for the FY 2008 Fire Prevention and Safety (FP&S) Grants opened on February 2. Applications for these grants must be received by March 6, 2009 at 5:00 p.m. EST.

The Fired Up For Fitness Challenge is an interactive fitness program that allows firefighters and emergency personnel to log their hours of activity and receive incentives rewards as they reach certain benchmark numbers of hours.