Thousands of fire departments across the country participated in the national stand down for firefighter safety, which began Tuesday this week and is still continuing in many departments.

Though it isn’t a complete national stand down, not since the first anniversary of 9/11 have so many fire departments paused to reflect on firefighter deaths – and focused on what was killing them.

Very initial estimates from the International Association of Fire Chiefs indicate about 5,000 fire departments took part in the national stand down, according to IAFC Executive Director Garry Briese. The estimate is based mainly on “wag” -- e-mails and conversations with fire departments and with state fire training directors, fire marshals and governors’ offices.

The number could rise to 7,000 or 8,000 if all the shifts that took part in the stand down are counted, he said.

That’s a far cry from all of the estimated 30,000 fire departments in the nation, but Briese considered it “wildly successful.”

“At no time in the history of this country have so many fire departments done so much for firefighter safety at the same time. It’s unprecedented,” he said.

The IAFC and 19 partnering fire service organizations asked every fire department in the nation to stand down beginning June 21, ceasing non-emergency activities to focus on the safety of firefighters. The idea was to reach every firefighter – every shift – volunteer or career.

Led by IAFC’s President Bob DiPoli, the campaign was designed to put the brakes on an alarming number of firefighter deaths this year. By early May firefighter deaths were already up to 50, half of the average yearly toll of 100. As of June 14, only halfway through the year, 58 firefighters have died on duty, seven more than had died at this time last year.

The IAFC will continue to gather information on the national stand down’s penetration to fire departments over the coming weeks through surveys to its members, state fire training directors, state fire marshals’ offices and the other partnering organizations that supported the stand down. A more exact figure will be coming.

But it was huge.

In addition to the blitz of information flowing through the partnering organizations, a full-page ad sponsored by Jeep and DaimlerChrysler Corp. ran in USA Today on Tuesday, putting the stand down in front of 5 million readers. The ad depicted a fire station with the flag flying at half-staff and said, “Help us to raise this flag.” It encouraged firefighters to post the ad in fire stations to drive home the safety message to fellow firefighters.

Reports of fire department stand downs have surfaced in the media in many communities this week. By Tuesday afternoon, a service for the IAFC monitoring broadcast media coverage of the stand down reported 167 mentions of the stand down in the United States from 10 a.m. Monday to 2 p.m. Tuesday, according to Jennifer Ashley, IAFC communications director. “We’ll be monitoring print coverage as well,” she said.

Another indicator of the widespread interest was heavy traffic on the Web page the IAFC created to suggest recommended fire department activities for the stand down. From May 23, the day the IAFC announced the call for the stand down, to May 29, the page received 34,611 unique visitors, not including visits to the page this week.

In the meantime, reports about departments that took part in the national stand down -- and those that didn’t -- are scattered in the media, which covered events in metro departments, small volunteer departments and department of every size in between, from Pittsburgh to Sacramento.

Stand Down Reports

Pittsburgh Fire Chief Michael Huss said his department ceased non-emergency activities for the stand down with shifts beginning at 9 a.m. Tuesday and at 7 p.m. Wednesday. The department’s remaining two shifts will go through stand down safety activities on Friday.

“The IAFF Local No. 1 was part of it,” said Huss. “We had a press conference to let the public know what we were doing that day, and the fact that we were focused on safety.” The news was covered by newspapers and television.

Like many departments, Pittsburgh followed the IAFC’s suggested activities for the stand down, beginning and ending with a moment of silence to reflect on fallen firefighters and a review of safety policies, accountability systems, safe driving policies, equipment checks, a review of seatbelt policies, and the importance of improving fitness and maintaining a healthy diet.

Will the stand down make firefighters safer? “Absolutely,” Huss said. “When the management and the union get together and make it a priority, it goes a long way in sending a message to our people that this is something important.”

In Pennsylvania, which had the highest number of firefighter fatalities of any state in 2004, State Fire Marshal Edward Mann said he was bombarded by requests for information about the stand down from fire departments and the media.

“Based on the number of phone calls I’ve received and the number of e-mails I received from fire departments that were looking for more information on the stand down -- and a lot of the chatter with e-mails -- there was widespread participation in the stand down in Pennsylvania,” Mann said.

Mann said no state proclamation was made, but his office made sure that all departments in the state had the information to participate in the stand down by passing along links to the IAFC stand down page and to important safety Web sites, such to the new Firefighter Near Miss Reporting System.

In his five years as state fire marshal, Mann said he’d never experienced such intense media coverage. “The press has been on a feeding frenzy for the last two or three days with the stand down,” said Mann. “I don’t think I’ve ever talked to so many people from newspapers, radio and television stations as I have over the last couple of days.”

Mann, who is the assistant chief of East Derry (Pa.) Fire Company, a small volunteer fire department, also conducted a stand down with his department’s members on Tuesday night. “My wife cooked a healthy meal of chili, made with skinless, boneless chicken breast – as opposed to greasy meat – and rice, and nobody was allowed to sit at the dinner table and drink anything except water,” he said.

After the meal, Mann went through each of the 16 Firefighter Life Safety Initiatives with firefighters at the table. “We talked about the line-of-duty deaths Pennsylvania had in 2004, and I had a piece of paper with 20 statements on it that said ‘I, as a member of the East Derry Fire Company, will….’ I went through each of those, one at a time and had the people who were sitting at the table sign theirs. They committed themselves to things on that list -- things like ‘I understand our seatbelt policy and will wear my seatbelt, and I also understand that if I don’t I’m getting thrown out of here.’“

After the discussion on safety, the department went through an equipment check, Mann said.

But even in Pennsylvania participation was spotty. An informal survey by The Morning Call, a newspaper in Allentown, Pa., showed that few departments in Lehigh Valley, Pa., participated in the stand down, and some were not even aware of it.

“Only Quakertown embraced the action fully, while Bethlehem and Easton will participate on a limited basis. Allentown will operate as usual,” reported The Call.

Jeff Murray, Williams Township fire chief, said he hadn't heard anything about the stand down. It might be easier for full-time departments to participate, he said, than for volunteer departments.

"We don't have any manned stations or anything like that," Murray told The Call. "When you get a call, it's whoever can make it. That's how it works."

Many volunteer departments plan to hold stand down activities on their regular meeting night. Firefighters in the community of Bay Leaf (N.C.), a combination department with 19 paid firefighters and 66 volunteers serving a rural and suburban community near Raleigh, example, held stand down Thursday, their normal meeting night for volunteers. Career firefighters will go through stand down during the day Thursday, said Bay Leaf Fire Chief Ronald L. Roof.

Roof said his department’s stand down activities will include a review of safety procedures involving personal protection equipment, apparatus, driving, the use of seatbelts, fireground safety and rapid intervention team preparedness and procedures.

“We’re also going to include physical health and safety, with cardiac [failure] being the leading cause of firefighter death. We’ll be talking about the health aspect of all of our firefighters to show them the importance of good exercise, getting their annual physicals and diet to keep weight, cholesterol and blood pressure under control and to monitor those so that we can stay healthy in a very very physically strenuous profession,” Roof said.

Nearby in Raleigh, Fire Chief Earl Fowler said he notified the head of each of the department’s divisions, covering a total of 522 personnel and 26 fire stations, to implement the stand down recommendations received from the IAFC, the state fire marshal’s office and others. Each division was responsible for implementing the stand down as they saw best, Fowler said. “In our services division, for example, we can’t stop working on fire trucks that day, but they did take some time to go over the proper lifting and pushing and pulling and securing equipment and things like that,” said Fowler.

In New York, where three firefighters are among those who have died this year, the fire department issued a directive for a “Personal Safety Initiative” to take place from 9 a.m. June 21 through 9 a.m. June 28, but did not call for ceasing non-emergency activities.

“While the National Stand Down urges fire departments to suspend all non-emergency activity and focus on safety during this period, this department believes that non-emergency duties, such as building inspections, are important to not only civilian safety but to firefighter safety as well,” said the FDNY statement signed by Fire Commissioner Nicholas Scoppeta and Fire Chief Peter Hayden.

Briese said he wasn’t disappointed that many departments didn’t participate. “Nothing has ever happened in the fire service that all did anything. I’m just absolutely delighted with the numbers we have,” he said.

Briese said Chief Dipoli, the IAFC board and the thousands of fire departments that took part in the stand down deserve praise for "an outstanding effort to address firefighter fatalities."

There has been some talk about making the stand down an annual event, but that’s still not decided. “It wasn’t done initially as a repeatable thing, it was done to impact the trend line that we saw here, but it’s being discussed,” Briese said.

As for the ultimate impact of the stand down -- its goal to reduce the number of firefighter fatalities – the true measure will be reckoned at the end of the year. No one can be certain how many firefighters the effort saved, only how many die.

No doubt many will be watching the nation’s LODD reports and hoping all this effort produces a new record low.

But as Briese said, "It's better to light one candle than to curse the darkness. And we lit a lot of candles this week."