Title
Life Safety Achievement Award for 2005 (NB)
This item requests that the Commission recognize Gainesville Fire Rescue and the citizens of Gainesville for earning the Residential Fire Safety Institute's annual Life Safety Achievement Award for 2005.
Explanation
The Residential Fire Safety Institute (RFSI) is a public interest group whose mission is to reduce residential fire deaths and injuries. The RFSI advocates the use of residential fire sprinklers, smoke alarms, carbon monoxide detectors, and teaching people fire-safe behavior. The RFSI assists fire departments with implementing residential sprinklers and smoke alarm programs on a local basis. Although residential fires in the U.S. account for only 20 percent of all fires, they result in 80 percent of all fire deaths. The RFSI is committed to reducing that number.
For 13 years, the Life Safety Achievement Award has recognized the local fire prevention activities that contribute to reducing the number of lives lost in residential fires. Gainesville Fire Rescue qualified for this award in 2005 because it recorded zero deaths in structures during that year. A total of 769 fire departments in the U.S., Canada, Italy, Japan, and Greece received the 2005 Life Safety Achievement Award.
Gainesville Fire Rescue has been presented with a Life Safety Achievement Award for the year 2005 by the Residential Fire Safety Institute. The award was announced by Roy L. Marshall, Director of the RFSI. "Experience tells us that fire prevention activity and public education can significantly reduce life and property loss from residential fires," Marshall said. "Prevention and education are very cost-effective compared to the traditional approach of relying on fire suppression. The Life Safety Achievement Award recognizes fire departments for their fire prevention efforts and encourages them to continually improve those efforts."
Fiscal Note
None.
Recommendation
The City Commission present the award to Gainesville Fire Rescue.