Barely a year following its inception, the National Fire Fighter Near-Miss Reporting System has received its 1000th report of a near-miss event. Such events are those unintentional, unsafe occurrences that might otherwise have resulted in an injury, fatality or property damage, but due to fortuitous happenstance did not.

Chief Jim Harmes, president of the International Association of Fire Chiefs, the organization that administers the program, said, “This [1,000th] report represents the growing success of this important, life-saving initiative. Near-miss reporting is taking lessons learned from firehouse kitchen tables across the country and making them available to anyone with Internet access.”

The IAFC points to the fact that reports to date have come from 46 U.S. states and two Canadian provinces as an indication of the program’s success. The organization says that firefighters, company officers and chief officers are submitting reports equally.

Almost half of all the reports involve fire emergency events, such as structure fires, vehicle fires and wildland fires. About 20% of the reports derive from non-fire emergency events, such as emergency medical calls and technical rescues. Another 20% of the reports are categorized as vehicle events (those occurring while responding to or returning from a call). The remainder of the reports are divided between on-duty events and training events.

“One thousand firefighters have seen value in sharing their experiences, and thousands more have visited firefighternearmiss.com to read reports, download resources and learn from others’ experiences. I encourage everyone in the fire service to visit the site often to make our profession safer for our communities, our fellow firefighters and ourselves,” said Harmes.

“Reaching this milestone sets us on track to begin making consequential sense of our reports and to provide analysis for our fire departments to help them save lives,” said Dennis Smith, chair of the National Fire Fighter Near-Miss Reporting System task force. “We’ve already seen patterns emerge, such as a high number of near-miss incidents involving power lines. Understanding these incidents help fire departments develop procedures to make our firefighters safer.”

The National Fire Fighter Near-Miss Reporting System, in collaboration with the National Programs Department of the IAFC, was created in August 2005 with the goal of improving firefighter safety by collecting, sharing and analyzing real-world, near-miss experiences. The system is voluntary, confidential, non-punitive and secure. The program is funded by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Assistance to Firefighters Grant Program and Fireman’s Fund Insurance Company.