As Firehouse Sees It: Getting Involved Locally with Politics for a National Impact

Last month, members of the U.S. fire service, manufacturers and representatives of key organizations that support firefighters made their annual trek to Washington, D.C., for the Congressional Fire Services Institute’s (CFSI) annual dinner and symposium. Conversation on the importance of the fire service’s engagement in local and national politics was stronger than any other time that I recall except right after the Sept. 11 terror attacks.

As of press time, programs that affect and support the fire service either were cut or put on hold. This puts vital research and funding for lifesaving equipment and fire and life-safety operations in peril, with uncertainty around the Assistance to Firefighters Grant (AFG) program and others. In every meeting, there was discussion of how this goes well beyond what’s making the headlines every day.

Everybody is fighting for what seems to be a smaller pool of money from the federal government. As all sorts of program funding are slashed and costs continue to grow at an alarming rate, fire departments are left to use worn out and noncompliant equipment to protect the citizens in their community. Life-safety efforts, including building inspections and fire prevention programs, have been struggling to return to normal since the pandemic.

The fire service still struggles to get buy-in from home builders associations when it comes to code and life-safety issues. Among the items discussed this year were the need to update building codes quicker and more efficiently as myriad construction types and projects go on across the country as well as the ongoing fight to mandate sprinklers in residential and high-rise buildings.

A key topic this year was single-stair, or single-exit, structures, which Greg Rogers and Sean DeCrane wrote about in the May 2024 issue of Firehouse (“The Case Against Single-Exit-Stairwell Buildings"). More and more localities in the United States allow these types of buildings, which permit smaller building footprints and reduced building costs.

One must look back to the World Trade Center, where the narrow, tight stairwells made it challenging for FDNY firefighters to ascend rapidly on one side while occupants tried to evacuate quickly down the other side. Most photographs that were captured in the stairwells show congestion, which likely caused delays for both groups, particularly when someone was carried down the stairs by two or more people.

In Europe, citizens and firefighters can claim a win on the backs of those who were lost to tragedies, including London’s Grenfell Tower Fire, which claimed 72. Beginning in 2026, two stairwells will be required in buildings that are taller than 59 feet. This will ensure that occupants have a means of egress beyond elevators or the single stair that could be filled with choking smoke and obstacles as firefighters go about their work.

Nearly 14 years ago, the late Dr. Harry Carter, in “Taken for Granted, Taken Away,” wrote, “I am afraid that many among you do not believe, as I do, that our federal fire programs could go away in the midst of a poor economy … This effort is needed more than ever this year, given the sea of change in the composition of our Congress.”

I hope that each of you who reads this takes a few minutes to visit the CFSI at cfsi.org, where you can find contacts for your representatives and senators and connect with them about the need to support the fire service, in particular, and public safety programs, as a whole. The website provides steps to contact them and fact sheets that you can use to raise awareness of the topics that are mentioned above. Since you voted them into office to represent you, please help to educate them and encourage them to support the first line of defense for their constituents.