Since 2004, the National Fallen Firefighters Foundation has worked to reduce line-of-duty injuries and deaths through research, education and training. As part of this effort, the foundation has sponsored three major Firefighter Life Safety summits, and several mini-summits.
The first Firefighter Life Safety Summit occurred in Tampa, Florida in March 2004 to examine the fire service culture toward safety and survivability. The summit was a result of the United States Fire Administration’s goal to reduce line-of-duty deaths (LODDs) by 50 percent over 10 years. More than 200 individuals representing a broad spectrum of the fire service and related organizations gathered for three days to assess current policies and training programs and recommend new approaches to drastically reduce firefighter LODDs.
These discussions became the blueprint for the 16 Firefighter Life Safety Initiatives and the NFFF’s Everyone Goes Home® campaign to educate the fire service on one unified agenda for reducing LODDs. Over the next few years, the NFFF sponsored five mini-summits to support FLSI outreach. This mini-summits focused on Wildland Firefighting, Structural Firefighting, Emergency Vehicles and Road Safety, Health, Wellness & Fitness, and Fire Prevention.
In 2007, a second major summit was held in Novato, California to assess the success of the 16 Firefighter Life Safety Initiatives. The group reviewed and commented on 16 white papers that had been prepared by subject matter experts on each of the Initiatives. The participants were asked to focus on each of the specific initiatives and propose key strategies to achieve results outlined in the white papers.
As the 10th anniversary of the first Tampa summit approached, it became clear that it was time to assemble again—to assess how far the fire service had come in implementing the 16 Firefighter Life Safety Initiatives and in achieving the LODD reduction goals. It was also the appropriate time to ask whether the 16 Firefighter Life Safety Initiatives are still on-target and to develop priorities and strategies for the next decade. TAMPA2, as it became known, sought to bring a similar group of fire service leaders together, but with an added focus on the company officer/crew boss and the next generation of leadership.
