Georgia City Fire Departments Embrace Data-Driven Risk Reduction

Each city's risk to public safety can be as unique as the people who live and work there. That's why many municipal fire departments across Georgia rely on data-based, strategic approaches, such as Community Risk Reduction program (CRR), to mitigate risks from large-scale events like fires, floods, or tornadoes to individual incidents like falls and medical emergencies.

According to the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA), CRR is a method for identifying and prioritizing local risks, followed by the integrated and strategic investment of resources to reduce their occurrence and impact. A CRR strategy is often based around "the 5Es" - education, engineering, enforcement, economic incentives, and emergency response.

"Collaboration among fire, police, EMS, city administration, and other departments such as planning and development, economic development, parks and recreation can uncover hazards or risks that the city can mitigate through unified action," explained Roswell Fire Division Chief Brian G. Wolfe, a strong advocate of Community Risk Reduction. The action could take the form of an "ordinance change to reduce fire risk in assisted living facilities," Wolfe said, "or the opening of a city facility to provide shelter during extreme weather to reduce the risk of cold or heat exposure to unhoused or limited-resource members of our communities."

For example, in 2012 Union City became the first city in Georgia to adopt an ordinance requiring owners of new multi-family or high-risk dwellings to equip housing units with devices that require "high-end heat limiting technology" for electric coiled cooking devices (ranges, cooktops and hot plates) helping to prevent stovetop cooking fires (the number one cause of household fires in the U.S. - 44% of all fires according to the NFPA).

As an example of enforcement action, Wolfe highlighted a technology tool - the Compliance Engine portal - that the cities of Roswell, Alpharetta, and Sandy Springs use to streamline system inspections like alarms and sprinklers to minimize wasted time and effort. Using the Compliance Engine portal, local businesses upload compliance reports before inspections, allowing inspectors to spend less time on repeat visits. Inspections are postponed if a company is non-compliant until a passing report is upoloaded. Roswell also has a Cry Wolf Program that tracks false alarms and determines if fines are needed to reduce false alarms, which can be a nuisance to fire and police departments.

According to Fayetteville Community Risk Reduction Officer Stephaene Core, the city has implemented "quite a few programs" as part of its risk reduction efforts.

One program called the Vial of Life encourages residents that are senior or disabled to fill out a form with their current medical information, enclose it and other pertinent documents in a clearly marked medical vial, put it in the refrigerator or freezer, and attach a Vial of Life sticker outside the refrigerator in case of a medical emergency.

"If the patient is unresponsive, [first responders] could get the information from the vial. They can understand what could be going on," Core explained. "Everyone can take a program like this and adjust to their community."

Fayetteville CRR officers also educate schoolchildren on fire safety through activities like station tours and fire truck appearances. They also provide CPR training at local businesses, install free smoke alarms for select residents in need, and conduct a junior firefighter camp for 6th to 8th graders, where the participants learn about what makes a fire, fire safety, radio communications, and more.

"My goal is not just to have programs, but to have them have an impact and be sustainable," Core said, adding that in the year since the city implemented the risk reduction programs, the city's ISO rating has dropped from two to three. An ISO rating is a score given to the fire departments and their communities by the Insurance Services Office (ISO) that assesses how well-prepared the community is for fires. "I want to grow our CRR program to reach all age groups," Core added. "Ensuring the programs fit our needs."

The city of Milton's CRR program involves the Fire Marshal and the Medical Services offices, and the city targets its programs based on incident data.

"The Medical Services office looks at a broader scope of medical-related needs, like CPR, community stop the bleed classes, and safe sitter programs that teach young girls how to become babysitters in the community," explained Milton Deputy Fire Chief and Fire Marshal Alex Fortner. "Another Milton CRR program is a co-response unit with the city's police department that speaks to mental health." The program is called Community Advocates for Referral and Education Services or CARES. The CARES medics refer those who have experienced a mental health episode to additional services. "Anytime the hospital discharges someone in the program who lives in Milton, a CARES medic will call and ask if they patient needs anything," Fortner said. The outreach program aims to bridge the gap between emergency care and everyday healthcare needs.

The city also has an education program on when to call 9-1-1 and a barn safety program, as it is known as an equestrian city.

Milton has also launched an online risk-assessment platform called CRAIG 1300, which incorporates incident data and overlays it with local community indicators.

"While we'll use this information in-house to better plan fire and life safety initiatives, it also has a public-facing component," Fortner explained. "That's right - the general public has access to key information and data points that will help them fully understand the risks in our community, how we respond, and what we're doing to reduce them."

Alpharetta Fire Marshal Ethan Talbot said that city prevention and education programs enable fire departments to address potential threats before they escalate to crisis levels.

"By doing this, we reduce the burden on community resources and emergency services," he said. "In Georgia, where diverse urban, rural, and coastal communities each face distinct risks, a robust CRR plan ensures that we are not only prepared for the unexpected but actively working to prevent it or restore our communities to normal with minimal disruption. When we invest in resources to implement CRR programs, we invest in our communities' longevity and prosperity, fostering environments where businesses can flourish, families can grow, and neighborhoods can thrive."

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