Presenter: John Hall and Marty Ahrens

From 1980 to 2009, the number of fire department emergency responses more than doubled, from 10.8 million to 26.5 million. This 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 during this same time period 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. To try to address this issue, the Fire Protection Research Foundation and NFPA have undertaken a research project focusing on developing a risk management tool for local fire departments to aid development of informed strategies to address the unwanted alarm issue in commercial buildings.