By Doug Nelson, State Fire Marshal
Last month the Fire Grants and Safety Act (S.870) was signed into Law by the President. This bill reauthorized the Assistance to Firefighters Grant (AFG) and the Staffing for Adequate Fire and Emergency Response (SAFER), reauthorized the United States Fire Administration through 2028, and extended the sunset date for AFC and SAFER to 2030. Our State’s Federal Delegation helped push this through by voting to support the passing of this bill in both the Senate and the House. The Congressional Fire Services Caucus was an important driver in getting this bill in front of Congress.
The Fire Caucus is one of the largest non-partisan caucus’ for federal delegation members. The mission of the fire caucus is to educate all members of Congress on the role and needs of the fire and emergency services. Congressman Armstrong and Senator Cramer are both members of this important organization that supports the fire services throughout the county. Further information on the Congressional Fire Services Caucus can be found here.
Within our Great State of North Dakota comes the news of oxygen tubing thermal cut-offs being covered by Medicaid! Every year, smoking while on oxygen causes fires and sometimes results in injuries and fatalities. These small, cheap and effective devices can help to stop an oxygen tubing fire. This is a big win for fire safety in North Dakota, and now we need your help to make sure consumers in your district know about these and that they are covered. Hopefully, this will prevent future injuries, fatalities, and fires. The fire chiefs throughout North Dakota helped push to ensure that our State was providing these important devices. The Missouri Valley Division of the International Association of Fire Chiefs has published a position statement on these devices as well and can be found here.
This leads us to ensure that when all fires occur, whether oxygen tubing-related or not, they need to be reported to the National Fire Incident Reporting System (NFIRS). North Dakota Century Code 18-01-06 requires Fire Chiefs (or their designee) to report fires within 30 days of occurrence. The full section of code can be found here. It is a great time to make sure your incident reporting is up to date. As the Certificate of Existence program kicks off, this is one of the items that we are required to check on. You can see if your department or district is reporting here on our “Incident Reports by Department Year-to-Date” report. If your department is listed in this report, you have had incidents that made it into NFIRS; if you are not listed, we don’t have any record of your incidents yet.