US agency to study fire-alarm response times Focus to be on deaths, injuries, property damage

The US Fire Administration says it will conduct a national study of how long fire departments take to respond to fire alarms, and whether delays are contributing to deaths.

A series of articles in January in the Globe documented a steady lengthening of response times, as fire departments have received smaller shares of municipal budgets. The newspaper reported that the Fire Administration, a federal agency under the Department of Homeland Security, has been collecting response times on incident reports since 1986, but has never analyzed them.

Once a day on average in the United States, someone dies when firefighters arrive more than 6 minutes after receiving a fire alarm. The fire industry goal is to get to 90 percent of building fires within 6 minutes of the alarm.

Before the Globe articles were published, a Fire Administration spokesman said that the agency leaves the study of response times to the states and individual fire departments. A national study had been considered in 2002, said the spokesman, Thomas Olshanski, but was not approved because of limited resources, other competing priorities, and the difficulties of doing such an analysis.

Olshanski said the agency is not comparing or ranking individual fire departments, but is examining whether slower response times result in more deaths, injuries, and property damage. The study may be complete by the end of this year, he said.

Another Fire Administration official said that the Globe articles did not prompt the study.

''USFA's interest in this topic predates the Globe articles," said Alex Furr, division director for the group's National Fire Data Center. ''It is good to know that we are not the only ones interested in the topic and we appreciate the fact that your articles have gotten others talking about the issue. However, your articles and our study are not a case of cause and effect."

Separately, the group's top administrator said that every fire department in the country should be required to report its fire statistics. The Globe's reports were based on a voluntary database, the National Fire Incident Reporting System. While nearly all major US cities report crime statistics to the FBI, the reporting of fires is spotty. New York City and Los Angeles are among the many fire departments not reporting.

Congress has required fire departments that receive federal grants to report their fires, but the Fire Administration has been giving several years leeway before enforcing that requirement. And even then the reports may not make their way to Washington, because some states don't send in the data. Massachusetts is one of only a few states requiring reporting of every fire with a death, injury, or property loss.

''It should be mandatory," said the group's administrator, R. David Paulison. ''The departments that don't report are missing out on the chance to know how they compare with others."

Bill Dedman can be reached at dedman@globe.com. The Globe reports on fire response times are online at www.boston.com/fires