As part of the ongoing efforts of the National Fallen Firefighters Foundation and the Everyone Goes Home^® program, the Advocate Outreach Program (AOP) was developed. The purpose of the AOP is to reduce the number of line-of-duty deaths that occur across the country each year. , By meeting directly with chief officers, senior staff, and firefighters about firefighter life safety issues we can introduce and/or discuss the Everyone Goes Home^® program and its resources.

A routine call, but this time tragedy strikes and a firefighter is killed in the line of duty. It happened 90 times in the United States in 2009 and already 52 times in 2010, according to the most recent statistics provided by the United States Fire Administration.

The fire service has changed radically over the last 30 years and continues to do so at a rapid pace...but why? We've done a great job over those years, so why do we have to keep changing things? Well, the fact is that nationally the number of fires and the amount of damage caused by those fires has continued to increase. This can be expected as a consequence of national growth, however, the true reason for change? It's all about the heartbeat. It's all about the lives of the citizens we serve as well as our own.

A couple months ago I attended a class entitled "Surviving Your Career" at the St. Marys, Georgia Fire Department and learned that "Taking Care of Our Own" is even more important than I thought. The information was presented by Kurtis R Wilson, Captain on the Jacksonville, Florida Hazardous Materials Team. Captain Wilson relayed shocking details of numerous Jacksonville firefighters being diagnosed with cancer, battling cancer, or who had already passed away from cancer or complications from it.

Somewhere in the country, a crew of firefighters will initiate a fast and aggressive interior attack at a residential structure fire only to be engulfed in a rapidly advancing and blinding wall of fire. As a result, the crew will instantly become disoriented and some will not be able to evacuate the structure. Risk management often used by firefighters during interior structural firefighting operations involves the act of avoiding the anticipated danger within the structure.

The National Fallen Firefighters Foundation, in partnership with Vision 20-20, is studying the profile of Community Risk Reduction (CRR) programs across the country. Community Risk Reduction incorporates both fire prevention activities and public education outreach; it is a more encompassing term that incorporates all the tools and activities a fire department uses to protect its community and its firefighters from harm. We are undertaking this project to more fully understand how Firefighter Initiatives 14 and 15 are being included in fire department strategic decisions-or not.
» Take the Survey: Community Risk Reduction Program Survey