HUNTINGTON, W.Va. — The Huntington Fire Department and the St. Albans Fire Department are among the 50 fire departments from across the United States now getting some help from the National Fire Protection Association in identifying local risks to life and property.
The NFPA’s Community Risk Reduction pilot program is in its early stages.
Over the next year, the participating departments will have access to a digital risk visualization dashboard run through mySidewalk, a platform that combines local and national data to guide planning around fire and other safety initiatives.
Put simply, officials with the Huntington Fire Department and St. Albans Fire Department will be able to more efficiently collect and analyze data to pinpoint risk areas and target fire prevention efforts more accurately.
“We’re very excited to be a part of this and we’re looking forward to seeing where it leads us,” said Mat Winters, fire marshal for the Huntington Fire Department.
So far, Huntington officials have been submitting information, including records of fire runs in the Cabell County city for the past five years along with geographical information.
“This has been a first time for us, so it’s been a process compiling all the information,” Winters told MetroNews.
It could be the middle or end of December before Huntington’s dashboard is fully operational.
“The pilot program is for one year and then we’ll kind of go from there as to how well it works for us,” Winters said.
The 50 departments selected for the NFPA pilot program were chosen based on factors that included size, geography, region, experience with risk reduction activities and community support.
With the dashboard access, training and networking, the award for each of the departments was valued at $7,000.
“Access to accurate data is critical to making informed decisions about where to focus efforts and resources,” said Karen Berard-Reed, NFPA community risk reduction strategist, in a statement.
“While many fire departments have struggled to work with data sets, NFPA’s CRA tool will do the complex work behind the scenes allowing stakeholders to create effective, community-risk reduction plans within their jurisdictions.”
Participating departments, at the same time, will be helping to build the tool so that it can be used by other departments in the future.