NFPA Releases State-level Fire Service Needs Assessment for Each State

The National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) recently released a fire service needs assessment for each state based on findings from the Third Needs Assessment of the U.S. Fire Service, a study that looked at the current needs of America’s fire departments as compared to those identified in assessments done in 2001 and 2005. The goal of the project was to identify major gaps in the needs of the U.S. fire service and to determine if the Department of Homeland Security Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Assistance to Firefighters Grant programs are continuing to reduce the needs of fire departments.

The report looked at personnel and their capabilities, including staffing, training, certification, and wellness/fitness; facilities and apparatus; personal protective equipment, fire prevention, and code enforcement; the ability to handle unusually challenging incidents; and communications and new technologies.

Findings from this report include:

• nearly half (46 percent) of all fire departments that are responsible for structural firefighting have not formally trained all their personnel involved in structural firefighting, down from 55 percent in 2001 and 53 percent in 2005;
• seven out of ten (70 percent) fire departments have no program to maintain basic firefighter fitness and health, down from 80 percent in 2001 and 76 percent in 2005;
• nearly half (46 percent) of all fire department engines and pumpers were at least 15 years old, down from 51 percent in 2001 and 50 percent in 2005;
• half (52 percent) of all fire departments cannot equip all firefighters on a shift with self-contained breathing apparatus (SCBA), down from 70 percent in 2001 and 60 percent in 2005; and
• two out of five (39 percent) fire departments do not have enough personal alert safety system devices (PASS) to equip all emergency responders on a shift, down from 62 percent in 2001 and 48 percent in 2005.

The Third Needs Assessment of the U.S. Fire Service concluded:

• Needs have declined to a considerable degree in a number of areas, particularly personal protective and firefighting equipment, two types of resources that received the largest shares of funding from the AFG programs.
• Some innovative technologies that have not been identified as necessary in existing standards but are known to be very useful to today’s fire service (including Internet access and thermal imaging cameras) have also seen large increases in use.
• Declines in needs have been more modest in some other important areas, such as training, which have received much smaller shares of AFG funds.
• Still other areas of need, such as apparatus, stations, and the staffing required to support the stations, have seen either limited reductions in need (e.g., apparatus needs in rural areas) or no reductions at all (e.g., adequacy of stations and personnel to meet standards and other guidance on speed and size of response).
• Fire prevention and code enforcement needs have shown no clear improvement over the past decade.
• In all areas emphasized by the AFG (Assistance to Firefighters Grant) and SAFER (Staffing for Adequate Fire and Emergency Response) grants, there is ample evidence of impact from the grants but also considerable residual need still to be addressed, even for needs that have seen considerable need-reduction in the past decade.
• There has been little change in the ability of departments, using only local resources, to handle certain types of unusually challenging incidents, including two types of homeland security scenarios (structural collapse and chemical/biological agent attack) and two types of large-scale emergency responses (a wildland/urban interface fire and a developing major flood).

To access individual New England state reports, please visit:

Connecticut: 2004  2007  2011  2011 Fact Sheet

Maine: 2004  2007  2011  2011 Fact Sheet

Massachusetts: 2004  2007  2011  2011 Fact Sheet

New Hampshire: 2004  2007  2011  2011 Fact Sheet

Rhode Island: 2004  2007  2011  2011 Fact Sheet

Vermont: 2004  2007  2011  2011 Fact Sheet

To access the full report, please visit:

NFPA: A Third Needs Assessment of the U.S. Fire Service (June 2001)