NFPA Journal - Summer 2022 - 45

NFPA to carry forward science to facilitate
change and establish codes and
standards that matter is certainly
going to be part of this partnership.
Some people have described the
recruitment and retention issues
facing the fire service, especially
in rural areas, as a full-blown
crisis. How do we address that?
What I hear from some people is, " I'm
losing half of my recruits because they
can't make it out of school, they can't
learn. " Well, we have to take a step back
and say, " Okay, how are you teaching
them? What methods are you using? "
Because if you're still using lectures and
PowerPoints and giving paper tests,
you're going to have some struggle.
Younger generations may have never
taken a paper test. We have to remember
the generational differences in
hiring and how they learn. We have to
explore new technologies for teaching.
In some regions, looking at better pay
and benefits could help. But at the same
time, I know fire departments that pay
well in regions with great benefits and
they still have challenges recruiting. So
it's a multifaceted problem.
In December, NFPA released its
Fifth Needs Assessment Survey of
the US Fire Service. As was the case
with past surveys, it showed large
gaps between the kinds of incidents
firefighters respond to and what
they're actually trained in. How do
we close those gaps?
Departments have to train based on the
risk in their community, and that risk
can be determined by pulling together a
community risk assessment-the important
first step in creating a community
risk reduction program. Look at the
kinds of structures you have, look at how
much hazmat response you're doing,
how much technical rescue, whether you
have wildland/urban interface in your
community, and then train on those
things. I think we've got to continue to
focus on prevention. We've got to focus
on inspections and making sure that we
are continuing that training often.
What are some of the emerging
hazards where you see a need for
responder training?
Certainly active shooter events is one.
We've seen, during the pandemic, the
strife and stress people have been
under, the hatred some people have,
and we have to understand threats
have been revealed. Understanding
" WE'RE GOING TO
NEED AN ALL-HANDS
APPROACH. I ABSOLUTELY
SEE NFPA AS A PARTNER
IN THESE INITIATIVES,
ESPECIALLY FOR
BUILDING RESPONDER
PREPAREDNESS. "
and preparing for violent extremism,
preparing for civil unrest-these
things are important, and they need
to be front-of-mind. One of the things
we don't focus enough on, in my opinion,
is the use of fire and smoke as
a weapon, and we need to pay more
attention to that. These are the things
that unfortunately exist today, and our
leaders have to look at that.
We hear a lot about firefighter
cancer. Will your administration
work to address that?
Absolutely. Firefighters have to understand
that they are going to be exposed
and are exposed [to potentially harmful
environments] on a daily basis. Even
if it's just the apparatus pulling off the
apparatus bay, you are getting exposed
to diesel fumes. There's a possibility
of exposure every single day to carcinogens.
We need to focus continually
on helping firefighters understand
for their own health and well-being
what they need to do when it comes
to preventing exposures and PPE
contamination.
Moore-Merrell's work as a paramedic in
Memphis introduced her to the realities
faced by responders across the country.
In January, the US witnessed two
of its worst residential fires ever-
one in the Bronx that killed 17 and
one in Philadelphia that killed 12.
What lessons can be learned from
those incidents?
We can't let a tragedy go by without
leveraging the lessons learned
and trying to prevent it from happening
again. One of the biggest lessons
learned is that smoke alarms matter.
Is that a lesson that we didn't already
know? No, but there's still a lot of indifference
in communities to listening to
that message. If people have a nuisance
alarm, they disassemble the alarm. We
can't do that. We're going to have to
find new ways of messaging to change
the indifference and the feeling that
" fires can't happen to me " because it can
happen to anyone. We're going to have
to do some brainstorming on that. For
the first time, we're bringing in some
non-fire people from FEMA who work
on community engagement and communicating
about disasters to help us. I
want to leverage some of how they are
communicating about disasters to get
our fire safety messages out. So, we're
going to do some different things here to
see if we can change some of the indifference
in the community to fire safety.
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NFPA Journal - Summer 2022

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