I?ve been a public educator for 18 years?that?s a long time. I?m not alone. There are a few more of you out there. We?ve been putting our programs together; evaluating, planning and forecasting trying to pinpoint the best way to spend our limited resources so we can see a real impact in our fire deaths, knowing that the vast majority of those will occur in the very place where people feel the safest, their homes.

We also understand that most of our fires and related injuries and deaths will occur within a relatively small percentage of the people we protect. We know that the majority of those incidents will occur within our low income and senior populations. We also know that education won?t do it alone. We understand that there are factors beyond our control that will continue to create an environment where these deaths will continue to stymie us.

We?ve all seen the shift, over the years, in where fires are occurring. Our inspection programs have done an outstanding job on the commercial side. We are not seeing the kinds of multiple loss incidents we used to. They still happen but not nearly as often as in the past. The problem is that we cannot use those same tools to address our changing fire problems.

Here is a classic example of how our traditional thinking and approaches to protection clash when trying to target this shift. This is something that happened in my jurisdiction a few years ago. We experienced two very large dollar loss fires in recently renovated low-income apartment properties. As a result of this my Fire Marshal decided that we needed to focus on our apartments and increase the number or inspections.

On the surface that would seem like a logical move, that is until you look at where the majority of fires are occurring in apartment buildings. Life threatening fires seldom start in the common areas where we have jurisdiction. They start inside the apartments themselves, in people?s homes. I don?t know about your jurisdiction, but folks around here would get a little testy if we started knocking on doors and demanding entry and writing them up?as well they should.

The conclusion that I?ve come to is that we are not going to see a significant statistically valid reduction in fire deaths in our jurisdictions until we start incorporating engineering changes with our educational programs.

The good news is that it?s easy. Changing behaviors in adults is an extremely difficult thing to achieve. To make that a permanent change is even more difficult. It is something that takes repetition and has to be revisited on a regular basis to maintain.

Lets take the example of smoke alarms. This is actually an engineering change with code enforcement behind it. But for smoke alarms to do their job there is a large public education component. Batteries need to be changed?or not, we have to teach alternatives to disabling them when they nuisance alarm. They also have to be tested on a regular basis. These would all seem to be simple enough messages and easy enough tasks for anyone to accomplish, but we know better.

There have been many successful smoke alarm campaigns out there. They have shown significant risk and loss reduction?for a year or two. Then we see the losses start to creep back up. Education programs that are asking for behavior changes only really continue to work in at risk populations if they are maintained on a regular basis. With all the other demands on our time coupled with dwindling budgets this is becoming harder and harder to do.

We need to find permanent long term fixes for our most at risk populations and reoccurring high-risk behaviors that we can combine with our educational approaches. We need to leave something behind that not only buys us some time, but also allows us to build on our successes so we can start making some significant headway.

Now the good news, we have developed some extremely sophisticated methodologies and evaluation skills to meet our traditional educational approaches. With the skill sets we have developed over the years selling an engineering change is a piece of cake.

We have some exceptional and affordable tools that we can use. We now also have the perfect opportunity. Most public educators, and for that matter public employees in general are familiar with the old adage ?when the stars line up?. We?ve all been there, you push and push on a project until you?re forced to admit to yourself that the timing isn?t right, so you wait until it is.

Well the stars are lined up right now. This year?s Fire Prevention Week message is ?Watch What You Heat? - one of our age old re-occurring high risk behaviors. We have an opportunity to make a real difference right now. Often when we look at an issue as large as this one appears to be, it?s easy to get overwhelmed. Plus, we still have to worry about our high-risk populations, low income and seniors. Both of which are growing at frightening rates within our AHJ?s. It?s hard to focus on a single behavior with this ?chocolate elephant? staring you in the face, to steal a favorite phrase of a colleague of mine.

This year however it?s all the same ?chocolate elephant?. Cooking fires are disproportionately high within our senior and low-income populations. We have an exceptional opportunity. We can; not only educate the general population about the ongoing problem with cooking fires, we have the potential to drastically reduce our fires permanently within our FMA?s most at risk.

This is the year that we can go beyond just marketing the education message of FPW. This is the year to get some local advisory groups together that include representatives from affordable housing, area aging services, and other city or county agencies because this is bigger than a fire problem. This is an affordable housing problem for the poor. This is an independence problem for seniors, and this is a budget problem for local governments.

If we can use this springboard to start a movement that creates an affordable permanent fix for cooking fires in our at-risk populations that we can be build on year after year?everybody wins. Because of that, it is not only does it fall within their job description to help with planning, it?s in their best interests to help pay for it.

I?m not going to dwell on the educational programs other than to say they are vital and need to be focused and available. This is a process that everyone in public education is familiar with. What I would like to talk about are some of the engineering fixes that are available, affordable, and effective.

Residential sprinklers are a given. With all the work that has been done over the last few years to make them a practical application for the average citizen they make sense. They are available and affordability. Every home and apartment in the country should have them?no doubt. However it is going to take time before they are in widespread use. There is also the issue of pre-existing housing where it will take even longer. We need to stay focused on keeping them in the forefront of our messages, but we also need a quicker fix for cooking fires.

In my opinion when it comes to unattended cooking fires sprinklers alone won?t fix the bulk of the problems anyway. We need to go beyond sprinklers. What needs to happen is a fix that will react quicker than a sprinkler head in the kitchen. We need something that will stop the fire at the point of ignition, eliminate the potential for burn injuries, and the possible inappropriate actions taken by the tenant.

There are some dry chemical devices that mount magnetically under the hood and will stop a fire very quickly. These are a good suppression fix, however they are a one time shot application, and hoods are not always there. What I have been looking for is a permanent solution that will prevent a cooking fire from ever happening to begin with.

I have found one. There is a company in Canada that has developed an affordable method to retro-fit any electric stovetop burner system that eliminates cooking fires before they start.

I first saw this technology at NFPA three years ago and was very impressed. The product is called Safe-T-element (STE). STE is built by a company called Pioneering Technologies. They are located just outside of Toronto, Canada.

The way they work is by clamping a cast iron burner plate with a thermocouple onto the existing electric element. Then the burner unit is connected to a small control board that is attached to the back of the stove. The unit then plugs into the regular socket for the element. What happens now is that the temperature when the burner is turned on high is regulated by the thermocouple so that the element cycles on and off to keep the cast iron plate at a constant cooking temperature of 662 degrees F. This is the optimal cooking temperature for food, but will not allow a fire.

We have placed these units in a number of at-risk homes and have already documented saves. Along with the saves it has given us a chance to evaluate how they perform as far as cooking quality. This was important because if they don?t do the job people won?t put them in. It has been my experience that they actually improve cooking quality and efficiency because of the even heat distribution. So I can now say with confidence that they cook well, they are affordable, $150.00 for a four-burner stovetop, and they stop fires.

On another note, the Safe-T-element was the recipient of the Home Safety Council?s innovative technology award this year. The product is recognized by UL and CSA for use in both the United States and Canada.

So when you start looking at all the pieces; the FPW theme this year, the target audience, and the opportunity for partnerships and resources, I think the stars have lined up and it?s time to take advantage of it. Let?s put a serious dent in kitchen fires this year, and move one step closer to eliminating them.

If you would like to get more information on ?Safe-T-element? you can check out their website at; http://www.safetelement.com If you have questions feel free to send me an e-mail at ediment@fire.ci.portland.or.us

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