Presenters: Kenneth Willette, NFPA; John Hall, NFPA; Lee Richardson, NFPA; Marty Ahrens, NFPA  
  
From 1980 to 2009, the number of fire department emergency responses more than doubled, from 10.8 million to 26.5 million. This increase was primarily driven by the more than tripling of medical aid calls, from 5.0 million in 1980 to 17.1 million in 2009. Fire department budgets have not kept pace with this rising volume of workload, and, particularly in recent years, there has been increased concern about the cost of unnecessary responses. From 1980 to 2009, the number of emergency responses to fires fell by more than half, from 3.0 million to 1.3 million, and the number of emergency responses for fires or mutual aid fell by about one-fifth, from 3.3 million to 2.6 million. However, emergency responses to false alarms more than doubled, from 0.9 million to 2.2 million. The false alarm problem has changed over the past third of a century from a problem of malicious false alarms to a problem of non-fire activations of automatic detection and alarm systems. There are several initiatives underway at NFPA aimed at helping local authorities manage the issue of unwanted alarms, including an NFPA 72® User’s Guide and a FPRF research project focusing on developing a risk management tool for local fire departments. There is also guidance in the current editions of NFPA codes and standards that can help.