Welcome to this edition of the IAAI’s CFITrainer.Net podcast. Today, we have a very special guest with us to talk about the National Fire Academy and Arson Awareness Week. We’re pleased to welcome Tonya Hoover, the Superintendent of the National Fire Academy. Superintendent Hoover has been on the job with NFA for just about a year, and she came to the position with more than 20 years of experience in local and state government, most recently as the California State Fire Marshal. She has developed and implemented fire protection, fire prevention, fire training, and community risk reduction programs in many capacities, including with the fire marshal’s office, as a fire marshal and battalion chief at a local fire department, and as a deputy campus fire marshal at the University of California at Berkeley. She’s a member of the Board of Directors for the National Fire Protection Association and the International Fire Service Training Association and a past committee member with the International Code Council. She’s here today to talk all things NFA, including Arson Awareness Week, which is coming up in May. Superintendent Hoover, welcome to the CFITrainer.Net podcast.

TONYA HOOVER: Thank you. It’s a pleasure to be with you this morning.

ROD AMMON: Well, we’re very grateful for your time. So some of the audience may not be familiar with your role of the NFA superintendent. Can you tell us a bit about your job?

TONYA HOOVER: Sure. Well, the superintendent of the National Fire Academy was established under the Fire Protection and Control Act of 1974 and, within that act, it established the National Fire Academy as well as the role of the superintendent. And the superintendent heads the NFA and has all of those exercising powers and authorities to do things such as develop and revise curricula, provide standards for admission and performance. But basically, it has the responsibility for enhancing the professional development of fire service personnel and other persons that are engaged in fire prevention and control activities.

ROD AMMON: I love to hear that. We did a survey back, oh, some time ago on one of the networks about what a firefighter – how do firefighters want to be defined? Maybe that’s not the word. How do they want to be thought of? And they said professional was the number-one answer, which I thought was interesting.

TONYA HOOVER: There you go.

ROD AMMON: So tell me about your priorities for your tenure.

TONYA HOOVER: Well, priorities for the National Fire Academy should always be centered on our students and those that come to partake in the activities here at the National Emergency Training Center. So most of my focus is on making sure that our curriculum and our delivery system is the best for folks that come to our campus. We want to make sure that we are current and relevant and, as I say to folks when I visit the classrooms, if we are – we need to be current in order to be relevant. If we’re not relevant, then somebody is going to ask the question, why are you there? And I never want to be on the other side of that conversation. Again, this is about our students. It’s not about our students just today, tomorrow, next week. It’s for our future students as well. So we want to make sure that what we are teaching here, what we’re providing in professional development here addresses the issue for emergency responders for the future as well as today.

ROD AMMON: Makes a lot of sense. From the people I know that work over near you, there’s a great gang of folks and a nice place to go when you want one.

TONYA HOOVER: It sure is.

ROD AMMON: So you’ve been working in this fire service training and education world for a long time, specifically in fire prevention for many years. Where do you think we’ve made progress?

TONYA HOOVER: Well, I believe we’ve made progress in a number of areas, and I’ll start with our response capabilities. If you look at where we’ve gone, where we are from where we’ve been, and our ability to cross over boundaries to serve the public, we’ve expanded our response capabilities. We are operating on more of a level platform. In other words, folks have adopted using ICS, using the NIMS system. We’ve made important progress in providing for a well-trained and ready workforce. Raising the level of health and safety is important to our workforce.

We’ve also raised the level of awareness in simple fire prevention methods such as smoke alarms, early education, all of the efforts and work that has gone into things like learn not to burn for our high-risk groups such as small children and then the work that we’ve done with our older folks in remembering when, things of that nature. With that said, though, we have made progress, that doesn’t mean that we should just sit on our laurels. When we see decreases in activity, people may have a tendency to step back and say, we don’t need that anymore, and that’s not the case. The reason why we see decreases in activity is because we’re strong in areas, and we’re putting it on the forefront and in people’s minds. The minute we back away, it is no longer on people’s minds, and we have a tendency to fall back into old habits.

So I think we still have work to be done in our prevention standpoint, such as in our codes and regulations. We need to be able to strengthen our code standards, as it not just relates to our public but the importance of those in our workforce, in our fire service workforce. A friend of mine used to say the place where our firefighters work is not in the station. It’s out there in the public. It’s out in the buildings. And so having an understanding on the codes and standards that protect not only our communities but our workforce is important, and we need to be able to communicate that.

We also need to be able to communicate that current codes and standards provide strength in our communities, resilience in our communities, and that’s all aspects of hazards whether it be flood, earthquake, or fire, that current codes and standards provide protection. And I mentioned health and safety, that we’ve raised that level of awareness, but we still have a lot to do in health and safety awareness with our firefighting workforce. We need to make sure that folks change some of those bad habits, protect themselves against disease, and function in a safe manner so that everybody has the opportunity to go home at night.

ROD AMMON: So when you think about our audience, which is mostly folks in the fire investigation world, any message for them? I know you have classes over there. I know people that are trainers or instructors, and there seems to be a lot of work going on.

TONYA HOOVER: Well, in the fire investigation world, again, training, education is very critical. The world has changed. Yes, I realize that fire is still hot, and it’s still releases smoke, but the tactics that people use to start fire, the environment in which fires are started in are different. Products are different that ignite, so back on that theme of health and safety, every fire investigator needs to take their health and safety into account as well. As far as that education and training piece, there may come a time when an investigator is challenged on decisions that they make, and so that training and education is very important. So whether it be an intentional fire and they are finding themselves in a position where they are in a courtroom or before a group of attorneys or having to defend a position they took, they need to understand the standards. They need to understand all of those aspects of putting a good fire investigation case together. So the work that we do here at the National Fire Academy, as it relates to fire investigation, is not just on the crime of arson but on increasing a person’s capability to do a thorough job in fire investigation.

ROD AMMON: So let’s talk a little bit about Arson Awareness Week. The topic of this year is abandoned buildings. And why did the USFA choose this topic?

TONYA HOOVER: Well, some folks may not remember this, but the last time arson in vacant and abandoned buildings was a theme for Arson Awareness Week was 17 years ago in 2001. We worked with the International Association of Arson Investigators on an abandoned building mitigation project, and if you look at what has gone on these past few years as it relates to economy and the downturn of the economy, again, buildings were in positions of being abandoned, people using those buildings for something other than their original intent. And so working with partners such as Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, NFPA, and the International Association of Arson Investigators, the USFA joined with them at bringing back the reduction arson at vacant and abandoned buildings as its theme.

ROD AMMON: So what are the goals of this abandoned buildings effort?

TONYA HOOVER: Well, the goal of it is to raise a level of awareness. There are – I’m looking at data right now. When we look at – from 2013 to 2015, there was an estimate of almost 23,000 vacant residential building fires within the United States, which caused an estimate of 75 deaths, 200 injuries, and $785 million in property loss; 34% intentional actions were the leading cause of vacant residential building fires. So these are a hazard to our community. They’re a hazard to our workforce. They’re a hazard to a community’s economy, and so we want folks to be aware of that and take appropriate actions.

ROD AMMON: What do you think the greatest challenge is when it comes to a city who has inspectors, has fire investigators? Some of them are the same people I guess in some case. What’s the greatest challenge for them when they’re going out there, trying to deal with the abandoned buildings in their town?

TONYA HOOVER: Well, part of the challenge of dealing with an abandoned building is you can only secure a building so much. You can board it up. You can chain it up. You can tape it up. But what we find is people a way to get inside of that building and use the building, and they use the building in all sorts of ways. We can’t be there 24/7 to monitor those buildings. It’s very difficult for a community to monitor their vacant buildings consistently. So the challenge is how do you secure the building so that folks don’t find their way in? And once they’re in, how do you ensure that something doesn’t go inside that building that could jeopardize life and property?

ROD AMMON: You know, it – I’ll ask the question, and you may not be able to answer it, but one of the things that drives me crazy when I drive around the country is I go in and I see these places, and I know how much effort on the fire service and others, it’s a business trying to secure these buildings. Why is it so difficult to get owners to take responsibility?

TONYA HOOVER: I wish I knew the answer to that question. I would venture to guess it depends upon the owner. It depends upon the owner’s mindset, depends on the economic situation of the community, and I would not even want to guess why someone would not want to secure their building appropriately so that somebody doesn’t get hurt. I mean if you think about between 2011 and ’15, there was an estimate of 3300 firefighters per year injured in vacant building fires; 13% of those firefighters injuries at structure fires occurred in or at a vacant building, so why an owner would not want to take the appropriate measures or to continue to take appropriate measures to secure that abandoned building or that vacant building, I can’t answer that one.

ROD AMMON: So what would you like everyone listening to this podcast to do during Arson Awareness Week this year? How can they be part of an effort?

TONYA HOOVER: Well, I think one of the first places to go – there’s a great tool kit that’s available, and that tool kit was a project done with the International Association of Arson Investigators, and we can give you the website for that tool kit: www.interfire.org. There is a feature on vacant buildings. That’s a great place to start. It provides information about nuisance fires, abandoned vacant building fires. Also, during this week, take the time to learn your community. Take the time to find vacant buildings. Have situational awareness as it relates to those abandoned buildings, vacant buildings, just in case our emergency responders should have a call to those vacant buildings.

ROD AMMON: It always worries me, and I know it does all of the leadership out there in the fire service when these buildings start to burn, and you worry so much that people are going into a building where there may be no one inside to save, and that always becomes a difficult call.

TONYA HOOVER: You know, I think there’s a – the late Chief Alan Brunacini had a mantra where he mentioned risk a lot to save a lot; risk a little to save a little; risk nothing to save nothing. I think we collectively – that awareness of our vacant buildings, what they may be used for, what they might not be used for, what is the risk? Doing a simple risk evaluation to determine what type of firefighting force we use should there be a fire, that’s important, and that’s part of this awareness.

ROD AMMON: It’s a great thing to remember. By the way, just the – I’m so glad you still go over to the Interfire site. A lot of people do, thousands every month, and I think that toolbox has been updated. We were somewhat involved in that, and the IAAI has that also up at firearson.com in the resources section, and we have a link to that at the bottom of the – on the podcast page. And I think that gives you real tactics that you can take, and one of them that is very important is the proper markings of these buildings so that you can know they’re secure and know that there isn’t anybody in them or at least hope that the latest markings tell you the right information.

TONYA HOOVER: Absolutely. When we mark buildings, we want to be sure that they stay marked. You mentioned earlier sometimes your fire inspectors are also your fire investigators. Sometimes they’re different, but this is one of those areas. There are so many other areas within the fire service where every aspect of the fire services working together, your inspectors working with your operations, working with your investigators to get a complete view of a community, complete view of that building.

ROD AMMON: So it sounds like people have some things to do. Some of our listeners can get over there, get some of those tools that are in the toolbox, share them, and have a discussion with the leadership at their fire department during that week. What’s the – what are the actual dates for Fire Arson Awareness Week this year?

TONYA HOOVER: Well, Arson Awareness Week for 2018 is May 6th through the 12th.

ROD AMMON: Okay.

TONYA HOOVER: And information will be on the USFA website available in two weeks at usfa.fema.gov/aaw.

ROD AMMON: Okay. What else can you do to give us a preview of what’s coming up this year at the NFA?

TONYA HOOVER: There are so many cool things going on at the NFA. We have increased our social media presence. We’re doing more enticing, I like to say, showing folks that may not normally have come to the USA what we have to offer here through our live streaming of some of our class work. We have extended – as we speak to fire investigation, we’ve extended our burn area, our burn lot where we’re able to do live burns, send our investigators in, and really get an idea of what a flashover room looks like, and then start that dig-through of the investigation. There is so much going on in our technical aspects, in our command and control, our fire prevention, our leadership. We are in the process of, once again, going through updates of so many pieces of our curriculum that, if you haven’t been here lately, you’re going to want to get here. It’s a very exciting time for us.

ROD AMMON: That sounds great, and I appreciate very much your time. Everybody does. So, with your plate pretty full, we’ll let you go unless there’s something else you wanted to bring up.

TONYA HOOVER: I just want to add that April 15th, important date. It’s an important date because that’s when the application period opens up for the National Fire Academy, so we want to make sure that folks get online and get their applications in.

ROD AMMON: Okay, so let’s say that again. Anybody who wants to get down to the NFA and be part of, I guess, the USFA’s training that’s going on at the NFA, they have to get to your website by April 15th.

TONYA HOOVER: April 15th opens the application period; so between April 15th and June 15th, get your applications in.

ROD AMMON: Thanks very much for your time.

TONYA HOOVER: Thank you and, everybody, be safe.

ROD AMMON: We appreciate your service.

TONYA HOOVER: Thank you.

ROD AMMON: Be well. As we mentioned in the interview, the IAAI has a Vacant Building Toolbox on their website at www.firearson.com. Go to the resources, and you can access the toolbox information and slides that may be helpful for you and your city. The direct link to the site is on this podcast page. If you are listening from our onsite player, you could just navigate to the resources section of the site and get the information.

It’s your last chance to register for the IAAI 2018 ITC in Frisco Texas. It’s only about a month away. You’ll find all the information on the class schedules, hotel, and registration links at iaaiitc.com. Don’t miss this chance to get dozens of hours of training in one location.

That concludes this podcast. Stay safe. Please check out usfa.fema.gov for more information on Arson Awareness Week. They’re also having a webinar on Wednesday the 18th at 2 p.m.

If you go to the USFA webpage, you can get information about that webinar on abandoned buildings. We’ll see you next time on CFITrainer.Net. For the IAAI and CFITrainer.Net, I’m Rod Ammon.

National Fire Academy

Arson Awareness Week

IAAI 2018 International Training Conference

Abandoned Building Toolbox from the IAAI on firearson.com