Shared from VPPPA Region II
"Please see today’s email below from the US Fire Administration. There have been 1,027 home fire fatalities reported in the media so far in 2020. This is a 4% increase from the same time frame last year. Since people are staying home now, please take this opportunity to share information about home fire safety. USFA has social cards, pictographs, and messages you can share on your social media accounts. Remind people to test their smoke alarms, replace their alarms if they are older than 10-years-old, make a home escape plan and practice it, and cook safely."
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COVID-19 response:
“Supporting your operations at the state, local, tribal, and territorial levels is the sole focus of the U.S. Fire Administration. We realize the challenges we all face have placed an incredible strain on our capabilities and resources to provide emergency response and other critical services to the citizens of communities and our nation. We also realize dealing with this pandemic has not alleviated the demands for your response or services that you were already providing and, in fact, has made them more difficult. Knowing this, the USFA remains focused and doing our best to provide the programs and education to help you improve service delivery. In addition to our involvement in support of the FEMA-COVID response, other activities continue by our dedicated staff.” Fire Administrator Keith Bryant
USFA has created resource pages to help you find information on funding, planning & response, infection control and behavioral health. We are updating these pages as information becomes available.
Community risk reduction:
Since people are staying home now, take this opportunity to share information about home fire safety. USFA has social cards, pictographs, and messages you can share on your social media accounts. ( https://www.usfa.fema.gov/prevention/outreach/media/social_toolkits/index.html , https://www.usfa.fema.gov/prevention/outreach/media/pictographs/index.html , https://www.usfa.fema.gov/prevention/outreach/media/social_toolkits/index.html )
Remind people to test their smoke alarms ( https://www.usfa.fema.gov/prevention/outreach/media/social_toolkits/toolkit_essentials.html ) , replace their alarms if they are older than 10-years-old, make a home escape plan and practice it ( https://www.usfa.fema.gov/prevention/outreach/media/social_toolkits/toolkit_essentials.html ), and cook safely ( https://www.usfa.fema.gov/prevention/outreach/media/social_toolkits/toolkit_cooking.html ).
Fire is Everyone's Fight:
Fire is Everyone’s Fight® is an initiative led by the USFA to unite the fire service in a collaborative effort to reduce home fire injuries, deaths and property loss.
Join the more than 3,000 fire and life safety organizations across the Nation to educate your communities about fire safety and rally behind a common and compelling theme. This helps us communicate and reinforce key lessons from proven fire safety and prevention initiatives and programs.
When you join, you will receive access to the logo to use on your materials. You will also receive access to important updated materials you can share with your community and tools to help you promote fire prevention and fire safety. ( https://apps.usfa.fema.gov/contact/fief/ )
Home fire fatalities in the news:
There have been 1,027 home fire fatalities reported in the media so far in 2020. This is a 4% increase from the same time frame last year.
Information on home fire fatalities is compiled through a daily Internet search of U.S. news media reports. We hope this information will help you raise awareness about the danger of fire and the frequency of home fire deaths.