Ron Siarnicki, executive director of the National Fallen Firefighters Foundation, is forming a task force to help the nonprofit organization develop a national line-of-duty death prevention program.

"Basically, this is a call to arms," Siarnicki said. "Right now we're looking for information and ideas on what people think we could do to prevent firefighter line-of-duty deaths. It's in the very early stages."

Siarnicki held a focus group meeting Aug. 22 in Dallas at Fire-Rescue International, the annual conference of the International Association of Fire Chiefs and is currently soliciting ideas by e-mail.

About 30 fire service officials attended Siarnicki's initial meeting, in which he reported a total of 2,732 American firefighters died in the line of duty between 1981 and 2002, meaning that, on average, a firefighter dies in the United States every 70 minutes. The leading cause of firefighter LODDs is stress or overexertion with cardiovascular disease as an underlying condition, Siarnicki said; vehicular accidents are the second leading cause of death.

The U.S. Fire Administration has set goals of reducing firefighter LODDs by 25 percent within five years and by 50 percent within 10 years. National initiatives already underway include the Center for Firefighter Safety, Research & Development at the University of Maryland, focusing research on advanced technologies to improve firefighter safety; the Responder FIT Program sponsored by the Foundations for Fitness, providing a complete 'turnkey" firefighter fitness, nutrition and safety program (or its components) including accountability software; and the Emergency Responder Safety Institute, an informal advisory committee of the Cumberland Valley (Del.) Volunteer Firemen's Association committed to reducing deaths and injuries to U.S. emergency responders.

"We realize there are many programs already out there, and we don't want to step in anybody else's sandbox," said Siarnicki, "but we're looking for our role. We want to find out where we fit in and who we might partner with."

Siarnicki has already extended an invitation to the IAFC's Health and Safety Committee to partner with the NFFF in developing a national LODD prevention program, and has been invited in return to the Health and Safety Committee's next meeting at the Fire Department Safety Officer's Conference in November.

NFFF is a nonprofit corporation established by Congress with the mission of honoring America's fallen firefighters. It holds a national memorial service weekend each October to honor firefighters who die in the line of duty and to assist surviving families in rebuilding their lives.

The next memorial service weekend will be held Oct. 4-5 in Emmitsburg, Md. For more information, visit www.firehero.org.

Siarnicki plans to present his recommendations for the LODD Prevention Task Force to the NFFF's Board of Directors in January 2004. For more information on the Task Force or to offer your suggestions, e-mail Siarnicki at rsiarnicki@aol.com.