In the past 12 months, there have been 33 separate fires in the United States that involved two or more fatalities. Eleven of the 33 fires killed four or more people. In the past four months alone, nine people were killed in one catastrophic fire, 10 people in another two separate fires, and 12 people died in another. Who cares?

Obviously, a lot of people care about these civilian fire deaths, but are we doing everything we can to raise awareness of these catastrophic fires?

Ed Comeau is certainly trying. Comeau is the editor of the Campus Firewatch e-newsletter and is best known for his efforts to raise awareness of fire safety and fire sprinklers on college campuses.

"What concerns me is that we're not seeing much reaction on a national scale to these incidents," Comeau wrote this week. "They are the ultimate 'teachable moments' where we can really drive home the importance of fire safety ... sprinklers, smoke alarms, cooking, heating, egress, candles, and smoking."

I made some phone calls to gauge the extent of national efforts and to see if there was an association for fire service public educators. I was referred back to the NFPA Public Education Section.

I spoke with Jim Dalton, who is on the section's board, and he explained that if we look at the history on multiple-fire fatalities, it's frequently a matter of socioeconomics, but added it really boils down to "good old, basic fire prevention."

The Home Safety Council continues to work aggressively on that front, providing free materials and networking opportunities to public educators on a wide assortment of fire- and home-safety topics directed toward youngsters, non-English speakers and others.

Meanwhile, Comeau drafted a press release for fire chiefs that have fire fatalities in their jurisdictions. It contains some support research on civilian fires and some suggestions to prevent fire. This research includes data like:

• A vast majority of the victims in residential fires were killed by smoke, not burn injuries, by a ratio of 6:1;
• 28% of the fatal home-fire victims were disabled in some way before the fire, including physical disabilities, age-related limitations, or alcohol or drug impairment;
• 40% of the fatal fire victims did not wake up before being killed;

Who's in charge of educating your community? Based on an interview I did with TriData's Phil Schaenman in October, the time for public educators in the fire service to become more aggressive is now. "Europeans and the Far East have said that prevention is their first service, not a support service," he said.

Why wait until someone dies? It wouldn't take much to tweak Comeau's press release and send it to your local newspapers as a reminder to your community.

Everyone owns this project.