Presenters: John Concha, El Paso Fire Department; Carl Manning, El Paso Fire Department  

One of the biggest challenges facing large fire departments is reaching culturally diverse, high-risk populations. Many of these populations speak a foreign language at home, have not learned basic fire safety awareness, and possess inadequate and inaccurate information concerning fire and fire prevention. The El Paso Fire Department is implementing several new fire prevention programs based on the information collected through focus group research sponsored by NFPA as part of the Urban Fire Safety Project. Additionally, the El Paso Fire Department has placed an increased emphasis on data collection and analysis in order to accurately identify the fire problem for high-risk populations within the El Paso community. The improved data collection mechanisms serve as the foundation for initiating program goals and interventions, developing new fire prevention materials, and establishing an accurate method for evaluating short-term impacts and long-term outcomes.The speakers from El Paso, Texas will also review the mission and accomplishments of NFPA’s Urban Fire Safety Task Force and discuss how NFPA is working with the El Paso Fire Department to address the cultural challenges found in its community. This session will also demonstrate how many of the successful fire prevention initiatives and public education programs that have been implemented in large metropolitan areas to reduce deaths and injuries from fire and related causes may also be used by smaller city fire departments to meet the cultural challenges commonly found within many high-risk populations.