What’s all the Confusion about NFPA 1710?

By: Ray Crouch, Sr. University of Tennessee, MTAS Fire Management Consultant

Introduction:

NFPA 1710 may well be the most controversial standard that has been
promulgated in recent history. Several groups have attempted to “hijack” this new
standard and use it for their own purpose. The truth is, it is a very good standard with
two very, very bad sections.
NFPA standards were never intended to be used to plow new ground, but instead,
are supposed to be a consensus of the latest information and technology from all users of
the standard. Consensus standards generally represent the vast majority of the affected
users.
What in the world is NFPA 1710 & 1720 anyway? NFPA 1710 contains
"minimum requirements relating to the organization and deployment of fire suppression
operations, emergency medical operations, and special operations to the public by
substantially all career fire departments." (Section 1.1.1.) In short and simplified terms,
NFPA 1710 is a performance guide for a career fire department that generally provides
for organizational, service, and staffing standards. Fully 98% of the standard is non-
controversial, but two major sticking points are that each fire apparatus be staffed with
four firefighters, and that response times be no more than four minutes after leaving the
firehouse for the first arriving company and/or eight minutes for a full first alarm
response; and four minutes for first responder capability to arrive at an emergency
medical incident, with advanced life support capability arriving within eight minutes.
NFPA 1720 concerns volunteer fire departments. Its staffing and response time
requirements are more general and flexible, but it does impose a variety of deployment
standards on volunteer departments. NFPA 1720 has not been very controversial, so far.

History of Development:

How did we get to this point? To answer this question requires me to give you a
brief history of how NFPA 1710 evolved to the point where it is now. The discussion of
risk management within the Fire Service has been ongoing for many years. The National
Fire Academy has offered classes in Risk Management since it started. Fire Chiefs and
Municipal Officials have wondered for years if “their” fire department was effective.
However, there was no standard by which to compare or judge the operations of a fire
department. Without a standard, every fire department claimed to be “great”. In 1987,
a technical committee of NFPA, while developing the 1500 standard (Firefighter Health
and Safety), inserted staffing and deployment language into the draft document. In
1992, NFPA’s full membership voted down the this specific language at their annual
meeting. This removed any staffing and deployment requirements from the NFPA 1500
standard.
During this same time period, (1987-1992) the International Association of Fire
Chiefs, working with a memorandum of understanding from the International City /
County Management Association formed a task force for the development of a
comprehensive set of standards for the deployment and operation of fire departments.
This process ultimately resulted in the formation of the Commission on Fire
Accreditation International (CFAI). At present, 50 fire departments have been accredited
by this organization and 200 more departments are in the process at present. The natural
conclusion of all this activity in standards development is that almost everyone, at every
level, thought that there should be some standard developed.
In 1995, the NFPA Standards Council authorized the development of NFPA 1200,
the Standard for Organization, Operation, Deployment and Evaluation of Public Fire
Protection and Emergency Medical Services. When the draft of this document was
released, the poop truly hit the fan. The NFPA 1200 technical committee received over
20,000 comments on the draft standard. The comments were so varied, so passionate,
and so diverse, that the technical committee decided that there could be no consensus
standard developed. The NFPA 1200 technical committee voted to return the standard to
the Standards Council, effectively killing it. Most groups and associations agreed that it
was not possible to develop a consensus standard at this time.
In the fall of 1998, NFPA decided to divide the staffing and deployment standards
into two separate standards, one for volunteer fire departments and one for career fire
departments. NFPA seemed determined to develop staffing and deployment standards
and thus began the development of NFPA 1710 (substantially career fire departments)
and NFPA 1720 (substantially volunteer fire departments). The battle was on. The
NFPA 1710 & 1720 technical committees made many changes to the standard over the
almost two year period of development. The standard almost became a consensus
standard, but there were two big issues over which no consensus could be reached. The
two big non-consensus issues were: (1) Individual company staffing (how many
firefighters should be on a particular vehicle) and, (2) How much time should be allowed
for the first vehicle and for the full first alarm assignment to reach the scene of the
emergency. Most Fire Chiefs and local government officials believed (and continue to
believe) that these two decisions are very complex and should be left up to the local
jurisdictions to determine.
This brings us to the final draft of the standard and the beginning of 2001. The
NFPA 1710 technical committee decided to leave the two controversial provisions in the
draft and let the full membership be the “bad boys” and vote from the floor of the
membership general assembly in May of 2001 in Anaheim, California. Enter the full-
blown, no holds barred, participation of the national organization of the International
Association of Firefighters. The IAFF saw this as a perfect opportunity to mandate a
minimum level of staffing per fire department vehicle by camping on the back of the new
NFPA 1710 standard. The IAFF effectively organized an NFPA membership campaign
from their membership and began making preparations to get their members to the
Anaheim meeting in May. The IAFF was over-whelming successful and the NFPA 1710
&1720 standards were adopted.
In response to an outcry from various quarters, the NFPA Standards Council
added an “equivalency” provision, allowing a local government to meet the purposes of
NFPA 1710 or 1720 by other “systems, methods or approaches.” These provisions were
added to the language and then approved by the Standards Council in July with an
effective date of August 2, 2001. The National League of Cities, supported by many state
municipal leagues appealed to the full NFPA board at its November 2001 meeting. In
November the board of directors of the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA)
denied an appeal of a national coalition of state municipal leagues, the National League
of Cities, ICMA, NACO and other national groups, challenging the issuance by NFPA of
two new standards (1710 & 1720) for the deployment of fire and EMS services. The
board’s decision lets stand the July approval of the standards by the NFPA Standards
Council. In an effort to be conciliatory, the NFPA Board gave the standards their shortest
review cycle of three years. For all practical purposes, NFPA 1710 & 1720 are now the
model, national standards.

Practical Implications for the Future:

The practical implications that may flow from the adoption of NFPA 1710 and 1720 can
basically be divided into three major categories. Obviously local ordinances may
potentially impact these issues; in some cases substantially; therefore, legal research may
be needed for each locality. The three areas are: (1) Cities may be at or near this standard
and may want to adopt it with or without modification; (2) potential involuntary
imposition of the standard on local agencies; and (3) potential tort or other legal liability
whether the standard is voluntarily adopted or involuntarily imposed.

Local Review and Adoption:

As previously stated, 98% of these standards (NFPA 1710 &1720) are just good
practice for fire department operation, with the exceptions of the minimum
staffing and time provisions which need to be reviewed in light of local
considerations. Each locality should review their current fire department
operation as compared to the whole NFPA 1710 or 1720 standards. Many fire
departments do not want to be compared to the model standards for fear of falling
well short, not of the staffing and time standards, but of the basic requirements.
In some cases, fire departments have opposed the adoption of NFPA 1710 & 1720
using the potential cost to meet the staffing and time constraints as their pretend
concern, when their real objections were to being compared to the rest of the
performance standards. In some cases, fire departments would like to adopt just
the staffing standards so they can hire additional firefighters, but provide no
appreciable increase in service levels to the public. The Fire Department and
Municipal management in each locality should determine the number of
firefighters assigned to a station, vehicle, or geographic area. These numbers
may vary dramatically from city to city and even from district to district within a
single city.

Involuntary Imposition. Supporters of NFPA 1710 and 1720 have argued that no
local agency is required to adopt these, or any other standard, and that no standard
would apply to any agency that does not adopt it. This is mostly true, and
becomes the basis of an excellent defense strategy if the city is forced to defend
itself from legal action based on comparing the operation of the city to these
“model national standards.” No city has to adopt the NFPA standards in total, and
any portion of the standard can be locally amended. To be sure, many cities do
 not use any of NFPA’s codes or standards, and do not intend to do so. But these
standards or their components could nevertheless be imposed on local agencies
through formal or informal action at the federal, state or local level. If the State
of Tennessee adopts a version of NFPA that contains the 1710 & 1720 standards
(year models 2000 and prior do not contain 1710 or 1720) it significantly weakens
the legal defense of the city since cities are a creature of the state and the state has
adopted this standard. The Congress could, but is not likely, to adopt this these
standards and thus impose them on Tennessee cities. However, in a more likely,
but by no means for sure scenario, a federal agency such as OSHA could adopt
these standards and impose them on cities in Tennessee.

Inadvertent Local Adoption:

Many local jurisdictions adopt some or all of NFPA’s fire codes and standards.
Routinely, these cities update to new versions of the standards. Where an agency does so
generally, it may automatically adopt all changes to them (thus incorporating NFPA 1710
or 1720 upon its becoming effective); alternatively, the agency may have to take an
affirmative act to adopt the applicable standard. Of particular concern, some fire
departments (as a matter of department policy) may start to use the standard as a guide to
their activities without consulting with their governing bodies or their legal counsel, and
without awareness of the liabilities and obligations this could impose on their local
agencies. Fire Chiefs should ask local counsel to review department policies and the code
and policy adoption process in their jurisdictions, and warn fire departments, so that their
governing bodies can act purposefully in considering whether to adopt 1710.

Tort And Other Liability Analysis:

Whether a local agency has voluntarily or inadvertently adopted 1710 or 1720, or has had
the standard imposed upon it involuntarily, the failure to meet the standard presents
significant personal injury liability issues as well as litigation requesting mandamus and
injunctive relief. If this seems speculative, shortly after the issuance of NFPA 1710 and
1720 the leading national firefighters association (union) acknowledged on its website
that this may be the initial way in which the standards are given effect. Interestingly, the
same organization criticized opponents of 1710 & 1720 for suggesting this potential to
the NFPA Standards Council. In short, plaintiffs will argue against a city that adoption of
the standard imposes a mandatory duty or other legal obligation, the breach of which
gives rise to a claim for damages or other relief. City officials should consult with
attorneys and insurance representatives for further information on the potential costs.
Remember, once a standard is adopted, it is binding on the unit of government
and generally can be used as the standard of conduct in tort litigation against it.

What applies to you – 1710 or 1720?

The answer to this question can be simply stated, but there may be a catch. The
answer is, a fire department falls under the 1710 standard if it is, “substantially all career”
and under 1720 if it is, “substantially all volunteer.” Obviously the critical word here is
“substantially.” There is no specific definition of the word in the standard, nor is there
any reference to a combination fire department. The conclusion that I draw from this is
that you are going to have to choose between career and volunteer and be willing to
defend how you picked the one that you did. NFPA did a national survey of 30,500 fire
departments and found that between 3,300 and 3,600 fire departments would have to
comply with 1710 if it were adopted. Or, in other words, only 8.8% of the fire
departments in the USA are going to be impacted by 1710. In Tennessee, I estimate that
between 57 and 61 fire departments will be considered career fire departments under the
substantially career rule. In Tennessee, 11.6% of the state’s fire departments will be
impacted by the NFPA 1710 standards to one degree or another.
The key to determining if 1710 applies to your fire department will come by
asking yourself a series of questions.

1. On a fire scene, within the first ten minutes, are their more volunteer or career
firefighters present?
2. Do career firefighters supplement the volunteers?
3. Do volunteer firefighters supplement the career firefighters?
4. How many career firefighters do you have and how many volunteers? (C/V)
5. Can the first attack line be advanced into a structure without volunteers?
6. What percentages of calls are run exclusively by career firefighters?
7. How many firefighters come from a fire station or from home?
8. Is the staff being paid an hourly wage when responding to calls?

After you answer these questions honestly, you will then have to make a decision
whether your fire department is substantially career or substantially volunteer.
A footnote to this discussion might be to mention that the NFPA Standards
Council was the body that required the “substantially” term to be added to the document.
The NFPA 1710 technical committee debated a wide range of possible definitions for the
term “substantially.” Reportedly, the committee leaned towards a strict numbers
approach, that is, if a department has 30 career/29 volunteers, its substantially all career.
However, let me re-emphasize that there is no definition in the standard and you need be
able to justify your answer – whatever you decide.

The Components of the Standard:

One of the major problems in the fire service is knowing when you have a good
fire department and when you don’t. In reviewing the book, “How Effective are Your
Community Services” and other readings on community surveys, in preparation for a
recent project, I discovered a startling fact. Most communities rate their fire departments
in the 89 to 98 percentile for approvals, regardless of the real level or effectiveness of
service that they provide to the citizens. Citizens, and in many cases, elected officials, do
not know if their fire department is, “good” or “bad.” Since there is no national model
standard of performance, the judgments of performance are based on perception or
feeling, not on any measurable, objective criteria.
The basic measurable criteria of the 1710 and 1720 standards are as follows:
 1. Organization
a. Response Times
b. EMS Requirements
c. Special Operations
d. Mutual Aid
2. Services
a. Written SOGs
b. Staffing
c. Supervision
d. Operating Units
e. Deployment
3. Safety and Health System
4. Incident Management
5. Communications
6. Pre-Incident Planning

None of these criteria are unclear. However, the National Fire Service Labor
Unions and their friends in other unions heavily influenced two of the criteria, to mandate
staff intensive fire departments. These two criteria are the staffing requirements and the
response times.
Response times are critical to good fire protection – if you don’t believe this, you
can stop reading now until you have read the research on the propagation curve and its’
relationship to victim survivability and property damage. With this said, response time
in all known studies has been reviewed from a relatively outdated set of statistics and
within a very narrow scope with only one changing variable, the amount of personnel
assigned to the first arriving companies, or the total personnel arriving within a fixed
period of time. In many cases, victims were dead even before the fire department was
notified of the fire, and certainly well before they were able to get on the scene. The
number and severity of structure fires has decreased over the past twenty years and the
focus of the fire service has turned to EMS, rescue, and fire suppression in that order.
In Tennessee, 98% of structure fires are extinguished by the first arriving engine
company. In fact, response times are so critical, that should a fire department have a
choice of 20 engine companies of two firefighters each, or 10 engine companies of four
firefighters, I would, without hesitation, recommend the former. However, by the clever
combination of response times and staffing requirements rolled into a single criterion
within the standard with little room for variation, NFPA 1710 has attempted to make fire
departments much more personnel intensive with little or no evidence that service
delivery to the customer will be improved.
Based on the four or five known studies of effectiveness of an engine company on
arrival at a fire scene, there can be no doubt that “some” additional effectiveness is
achieved. However, the difference in effectiveness between a two, three, or four
firefighter crew may not be worth nearly the effectiveness of decreased response time.
Any standard of performance measurement that that limits the ultimate outcome by
measuring quantifiable numbers of people and time instead of looking at the final result –
saving lives and property should not be held up as the “national standard.” This standard
does not take into account a city that would mandate monitored smoke alarms or use any
other form of technology to reduce the loss of life and property.
The standard (NFPA 1710) allows compliance by having a four-person company
arriving within four minutes. This does not take into account the fact that the occupants
may not be at home, or that they are asleep. In either case, several minutes, up to half an
hour, would have elapsed before the fire was detected and reported. If instead, new
money was invested into monitored smoke alarms, the two person fire company arriving
in less than 3 minutes would be able to extinguish the comparatively small fire, in relative
safety and assist the family from their dwelling. This statement is not to be taken in any
way to indicate that we need less firefighters. Instead, it is meant to say that the old
standard of fire station location needs to be reviewed. Fully 70% of the call volume of
the fire departments that would be affected by NFPA 1710 is related to EMS. Two
firefighters can handle the vast majority of these calls. Response time is critical in EMS
calls. All the “hurry cases”, blood loss, not breathing, choking, and no circulation, are
extremely time sensitive. There is no question that response time should be a factor in
the performance criteria of a fire department. However, when that response time is tied
to an arbitrary number of staffing, it may well be counter-productive.

Summary:

It is important to remember that if response time and staffing are tied together, it
is a very expensive proposition to fix them. If fire departments have the ability to reduce
response time by having flexibility in staffing, that should be our goal.
NFPA 1710 was effectively neutered by tying response times and staffing
together. Had these two criteria been separated, it may well have become the national
model standard. In its present form, it will be used as a club by unions, fire chiefs and
others to pound out more firefighters. In some cases more firefighters may have been
the solution. In some cases, having more firefighters will not fix any problems, but will
certainly cost a lot more money. There is no question that many organizations will
oppose the standard with all the same enthusiasm as those who supported it. Fire Chiefs
will be right in the middle. In either case, remember, a club can be a tool, but it is not
always the tool of preference.
There are no simple solutions. Ask a coach, how do you win? He will tell you
there are lots of things, ways, people needed to win. So then, how do we have better fire
protection? There are lots of ways to answer that question. NFPA 1710 may well be
the firefighters full employment act, but it is not a simplistic solution on how to have a
better fire department.