By Susan Nicol
for Firehouse.com

While progress is being made, some departments still can’t equip their personnel with the necessary tools, according to the NFPA’s Third Needs Assessment of the U.S. Fire Service.

The study — released last week — compares the recent results with those of assessments conducted in 2001 and 2005.

“Fire service needs are extensive across the board, and in nearly every area of need, the smaller the community protected, the greater the need,” they wrote.

A few observations from the report:

• Half of all fire departments do not have enough portable radios to equip all responders on a shift, and 59 percent of those surveyed do not have radios that are water resistant.
• One-fourth of all departments switched from not having radios for all shift responders to having enough radios for all shift responders. That is roughly 7,000 fire departments that now have all the radios they need.
• 52 percent of departments cannot equip all firefighters on the shift with their own SCBA. This shows improvement over 2001 at 70 percent, and 2005 when 60 percent were in the same situation. Also, 55 percent said their SCBAs were 10 years old.
• Two out of five cannot provide every firefighter with their own personal alert safety system (PASS) device.
• Departments are making headway in providing responders with their own personal protective clothing. The latest results show nine percent can’t outfit their crews, compared to 15 percent in 2001 and 11 percent in 2005. Also, a few more departments say they now have more clothing in reserve than before.

After the analysis, researchers concluded: “In every identifiable category of personal protective equipment, hundreds, even thousands, of departments have moved from a condition of need to a condition of no need, under the criteria used here. Even so, thousands more departments remain in need. Needs related to a sufficiency of equipment have seen the greatest reductions, while needs related to advanced capabilities of equipment have seen smaller but still noteworthy reductions.”

How would you rank your department?