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November 2004                                                                            Volume 7 - Number 2

    

 

Fire Reports...

     

 

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Fire Prevention & Safety Grants 2003
By Wamiz Sameen

                                                                                                                

The purpose of these grants is to assist State, regional, national or local organizations to address fire prevention and safety. The primary goal is to reach high-risk target groups including children, seniors and firefighters. Under the authorizing statute the emphasis for these grants is the prevention of fire related injuries to children.

The authority for these grants is the Federal Fire Protection and Control Act of 1974 (15 U.S.C. §§ 2201 et seq.), as amended. In fiscal year (FY) 2003, Congress appropriated a total of $745,125,000 to carry out the activities of the Assistance to Firefighters Grant Program. This appropriation included a mandate that no less than five percent of the appropriated funds support fire prevention activities. As such, $27,500,000 of the total appropriation has been reserved for the Fire Prevention and Safety grants.

<> Some examples of fire prevention grant 2003 in the vicinity are:
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  • <>Society of Fire Protection Engineers Bethesda MD received $408,19
  • <>Arlington County received $476,875
  • National Safe Kids Campaign Washington DC received $743914
  • People's Firehouse, Inc. Brooklyn, NY 13500

 

In this article we will only consider Arlington County’s expenditure for Fire prevention grant 2003 for succinctness:

 

Arlington’s County mission is to enforce the Fire Prevention Code; enforce requirements in the County code in order to insure public building safety; educate the public, investigate the causes of fires, explosions and environmental crimes and render safe all identified hazardous devices. These functions would be accomplished through comprehensive Fire Prevention Code inspections and ongoing training in the community. Investigations are conducted to determine the origin and cause of fires or explosions and determine the circumstances or the person responsible for the spill, leak and/or clean up of environmental incidents.

Significant Program Highlights:

The budget for the Fire Prevention, Code Enforcement and Investigation Program reflects:

  • Personnel expenses increased due to normal step increases and the reclassification of a Fire Marshall to a Fire/EMS Captain ($19,512).
     
  • Non-Personnel expenses increased due mainly to an increase in training ($13,627).
  • Revenues decreased due to projected income from Confidence Testing ($11,000) and reimbursement for Fire Marshal Service in Falls Church ($19,663) which is partially offset by an increase in Assembly Permit fees ($24,500).

  

Performance Measures:

Objective: To measure the effectiveness of program areas of greatest concern: inspections and investigations.

 

FY 2003

Inspections Conducted

1,800

Violations Cited

750

Systems Tests

160

Cases Investigated

140

Cases Resulting In Arrest

13

Cases Resulting In Convictions

13

Request For Information

160
  • The Inspection Program has been consolidated to incorporate all Fire Prevention Code, fire protection systems, and hazardous materials inspections.

Objective: To promote safety in the community through an aggressive approach toward education and regulatory enforcement of hazardous activities and processes governed by the fire prevention code.

 

FY 2003

Fire Prevention Code Permits Issued

600

Permit Fees

$50,000

Future Budget Considerations:

  • Automating operations in the areas of data collection, electronic file storage and records management in order to enhance service delivery and deploy.
  • Additional staff may be needed to increase the systems testing program