USFA Activities with COVID-19
Updates and Outreach to Stakeholders
From the desk of the U.S. Fire Administrator:
"Supporting your operations at the state, local, tribal and territorial levels is the sole focus of the USFA. We realize the challenges we face have placed an incredible strain on our capabilities and resources to provide emergency response and other critical services to the citizens of communities and our nation. We also realize dealing with this pandemic has not alleviated the demands for your response or services that you were already providing and, in fact, has made them more difficult.
Knowing this, the USFA remains focused and doing our best to provide programs and education to help you improve service delivery. In addition to our involvement in support of the FEMA-COVID response, other activities continue by our dedicated staff. We feel it important to share with you and your membership a snapshot of those activities. If you have questions about these materials or other activities of the USFA, please contact us."
Fire Administrator Keith Bryant
The U.S. Fire Administration (USFA) continues to assist Type-3 All-Hazard Incident Management Teams (AHIMTs) in their response to COVID-19. Most AHIMT assist in the response at state, local, tribal and territorial levels. USFA assists with lessons learned and best practices, including the use of non-traditional partners in response.
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National Fire Incident Reporting System (NFIRS) COVID-19 Special Study
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Date range
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1/1 – 4/23/2020
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COVID-19 special study incidents
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47,445
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Participating fire departments
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2,394
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Participating states (including the Department of Defense)
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42
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Increase in incidents from the last report
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1,577
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Number of fire service personnel responded to confirmed or suspected incidents (year-to-date)
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11,615
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The National Fire Academy released a new on-line self-study course Introduction to Strategic Community Risk Reduction (CRR). It is an excellent stand-alone course to help those new to CRR understand the strategies. We encourage our partners to check out online mediated and self-study courses. Remember, first semester application period opens on May 1 and has been extended to June 30, 2020
The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is providing $100 million in supplemental funding for personal protective equipment and related supplies to the fire service community to prevent, prepare for, and respond to the COVID-19 pandemic. The funding is part of the Coronavirus Aid Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act through the Assistance to Firefighters Grant Program. The grant application period opened April 28. Applications are being accepted until May 15. Additional information can be found at https://www.usfa.fema.gov/grants/.
Arson Awareness Week 2020 (May 3-9) — First Responders: Fire Investigations, Arson Laws and You! highlights the crucial role firefighters have in a successful fire investigation. Firefighters are not just first responders to the fire, but also first responders to fire investigation.
April was Wildland Urban Interface (WUI) Awareness Month and led into Wildfire Community Preparedness Day on May 2. WUI risk reduction activities like defensible space and fuel reduction benefit from year-round maintenance and upkeep. As we move into the warmer and drier seasons, the USFA encourages communities to continue their WUI mitigation efforts especially those that can be carried out while respecting social distancing. The USFA WUI Toolkit provides tools and resources to support community planning and risk reduction efforts.
For additional COVID-19 information visit:
https://www.usfa.fema.gov/coronavirus
https://www.fema.gov/coronavirus
To receive COVID-19 updates from the US Fire Adminstration, sign up here. https://public.govdelivery.com/accounts/USDHSFA/subscriber/new
Originally published information https://www.usfa.fema.gov/coronavirus/usfa_covid19_updates.html