some major current or recent projects the u.s. has supported include the following. the next generation of home fire alarms. next generation of firefighter protective clothing. nfpa salutes chief ernie mitchell and latest in a distinguished line of leaders. we look forward to working with him. to sum up, nfpa urges you to provide requested funding, its research program, the academy's training program, grants program and infers. all in keeping with an agency

that will provide a national focus on fire. thank you very much for the opportunity to speak with you and i will be happen p pi to answer your questions. >> i now recognize chief critchley for five minutes. >> good morning. i am chief critchley of the tucson fire department and the president of the western fire chief's associationuation. i am also a member of the international association of fire chiefs. that have taken place since the usf a was created. in 1978, 172 firefighters died in the line of duty. in 2011, we had 83 firefighters.

in 1978, we have seen a number of civilian fire deaths also drop over 50% to a little ov ovover 3,000. through fire service training, public education and research. i would like to emphasize the national fire training academy to train more than half a million responders in 2007. through 2011. i am proud to be one of the 6,000 arizonans to have completed the class. this program is a gold standard for developing ready to deal with the nation's future challenges. as a local fire service instr t

instructor provides education basis best practices to help train the next generation of fire service leaders. this training provides operaablety at the scene of many disasters. also provides excellent data to the national fire data center. the infers allows local fire departments to report incidents and identify national trends. i use the report to compare their statistics in the incidents that i have in tucson. this capability aloes me to prepare for the future threats to my citizens. the budget has been reduced 25% over the past decade. fiscal year 2013 would cut the budget by an additional 2.5%. this will reduce classes,

eliminate many important programs. they will also cancel the final stages of the infers modernization effort. fiscal year 2011 budget of only 45 million is not a large federal spending program, however, the agency playing a role in the governmental function of protecting the public. we would like to express the efforts to clarify then non fire incidents. there is understanding which allows the fa to act as a support agency. local fire departments work well for wild land fires. however, based on its relationship with the nation's fire and emergency services, we

think the mou should continue with the sfa playing a stronger role in struckal events. in addition, we support the establishment of teams of firefighters that can quick ly deploy in the event of a major all hazards disaster. as we witnessed in arizona last year, local fire departments are the first on scene and last to leave the incident. these teams can provide a major benefit by helping the management recovery activities and working with state, tribal and local agencies. the authorization expires on september 30th. joe lieberman and susan collins have introduced mark up 2218. this would introduce funding. on behalf o the the leadership, i ask the committee consider

companion leadership. i would like to thank you for the continued support over the years. we have made manl progress, however, we have much more -- thank you for holding this hearing and i look forward to answering your questions. >> thank you, chairman, quyale. >> i'm kevin o connor, there's 300,000 members proudly serve communities in -- i'm currently a constituent of member sahr vains and after november will be a proud constituent of the ranging member. as firefighters take on additional responsibleties and extended capabilities, so, too, must the fire administration evolve to meet the needs of the

21st century fire service. the primary function was to put out fires. today's fires are well education -- responders with broad responsibleties. the first boots op the ground for any manmade or natural disaster. the prevalence of the fire based delivery systems requires the agency to integrate training into its mission. we want to ensure the ems be forded its appropriate attention. while the fire administration continues to integrate into its programs, it must work the change the perception focused simply on fire. one way that problem may be solved is to simply change the

agency's name to preflekt its current mission. the u.s. fire and administration would better describe the role of both the modern fire service and the agency. after the well publicized problems stemming from hurricane katrina, congress rightly took steps to revamp our nation's approach to emergency response. usfa is working to develop a better means of response for disaster employment. currently, the agency is considering organizing firefighters and others to support fema response and recovery efforts. the iaff fully support this is endeavor, but we must ensure firefighters are appropriately utilized and deploid during a disaster. during response to hurricane katrina, fema called up a thousand firefighters to service community relations officers

instead of deploying them to the front line. frankly, the fs a tragic waste of resources and capabilities. the best way would be to establish a system. in the past, too many firefighters have self-dispatched an emergency, but many have lacked the training and experience to operate effectively. a national system will alleviate that uncertainty by typing responders based on training and certification levels. this will enable commanders to make the most use of personnel. the project needs to be completed. most importantly, usf a serves

as the voice of the federal government. unfortunately, the -- is compromised by lack of adequate funding. u usfa has long struggle led with reports. the current level of $76.5 million must be maintained for the agency to carry out its mission and i urge this committee to increase the level. rest assured, we will be making the same case to your colleagues. lastly, i'd like to address a prior recommendation that in our view usf a has been slow to implement. the u.s. fire academy through training and education. today, the academy offers distance learning training at centers throughout the united states to expand its ability to serve individuals who weren't able to attend training. congress authorized usf a to

partner with nationally recognized -- to dlaifr portion of the agency's training. organizations such as a iaff provide excellent partners that few institutions can match. through some partnerships, usfa could increase the number of firefighters to benefit from these training programs. we look forward to working with chief mitchell in his role in implementing this program. i thank you for the opportunity to speak before you today and like my colleagues, i'm ready to answer any questions. >> thank you and now i want to thank all of the witnesses for their testimony and also for being right at the five minute button. that is a rarity on capitol hill and i thank you. limit questioning to five minutes. the chair will open the round of question. recognize myself for five minutes. chief mitchell, as we are examining the usfa, we're

interested in what changes should be made. it serves as a support agency -- firefighters an ex. these are signed at the des cession of the fire service. some recommended that the usfa should be elevated to coleader. would the usfa be able to handle this responsibility and to your knowledge, has the department explored the possibility of making this change with the forest service? >> thank you. yes, we have explored it. in fact, we have come up with a couple of initiatives that would allow us to participate more in response. we are meeting with fema

response leadership at this time. this very week and also with the u.s. forest service to discuss how we would coordinate dual coordinators. we have a lot of ideas on partners with the forest service and state and regional agencies to provide some level through some of the existing mutual agreements and contracts. and so there was a point where we wondered if we had that authority. we've talked with our legal folks and we find that fema administration has the authority to write us into that program. right now, we're just trying to coordinate that effort to the forest service and do it in a way that is acceptable. >> thank you. >> chief critchley, how would

having the u.s. serve as the coleader strengthen and compliment the fire service response to all hazards? >> at this time, we're learning the same incident management time type that the forest service uses, yet we have some specific entities, some specific duties that we do in an event that the forest service model doesn't address in the hazmat, the technical rescue during a big fire scene. i think this will l build up a strength of it and then come tog a support agency. if we're both there with our voices saying this is the best way to go, i think that's a much better end product than having to wait for support. >> thank you.

there is ongoing research at dhs and this fire safety looking at fire retardant materials to protect firefighters. how does the usfa coordinate its research along with other fire safety research going on at the department of homeland security and defense? >> we meet with them regularly both dhs snt. w we are talking now with the or recent recently with oak ridge laboratories about new smoke detector technologies. essentially, we continuely have communications through our team that works on technology and research at the usf ara we gath input from our stakeholders and

other organizations from across the country in the fire service as to needs. we communicate those with the technology agencies and laboratories and partners and try to see that our needs are being met by the research community. >> have you experienced any sort of problems with actualliy l getting the level of cooperation wean the agencies? sometimes we hear it's hard to get information from one agency if you're working with another agency. >> i've only recently come into the federal government and so, the level of bureaucracy -- >> you can say it. go ahead. >> that you maybe need to go through to go from one step to the next is a little different than in local government, but the people engaged are very cooperative.

i think though that sometimes, the process and our level of resource that supports us being engaged in the process, probably limits the, our ability to move forward faster, but we work with them to the extent that we can. >> thank you. i now recognize miss edwards for five minutes. >> thank you, mr. chairman and to our witnesses. my staff actually just had a chance to spend a day at our fire train iing academy and i he to say for the work of firefighters and our chiefs, chief critchley on the ground, that's not for the faint of heart, so i really appreciate what you do for all of our communities. in your testimony, mr. o connor and chief critchley, and we'll allow you to answer this question out of respect for administrator mitchell.

and i'll share with you quhi. you both expressed concerns over the administration's current level of funding and described the impact. this declining budget is having on the activities and specifically, chief critchley, you mentioned that the fire administration won't be able to complete modernization on the fire incident reporting system and that a number of courses offered at the fire academy will be eliminated and new courses will not be developed. i wonder if you can comment on the ability of the fire administration to fulfill its mission especially as you know what the needs are, at the most local level and i wonder if the two of you could comment on what these budget constraints mean and what level of authorized funding do you think ought to be included in a reauthorizing bill as we move forward through congress? chief? >> so, to the first point about the losses that we've seen in

the -- in the u.s. fire administration specifically at the national fire academy, we've seen a reduction in the number of courses. wide ranging courses from hazardous material to prevention to deployment for commanding control. lots of those have been reduced. we've seen a wonderful program called the trade program that is also looking at a reduction in funding. in the trade program is where i met fire chief garrett olson for the very first time as training officers, which builds a network across the nation about doing the right thing with our training. that, i'm worried that may be lost in it. the executive officer program. what an outstanding way to educate a continuum of leaders in the fire service so that we're thinking forward instead of staying the way we are because we're all going to have to change. those are issues that i would be concerned about with being cut.

on the modernization of the infers. right now, we get r reports. lots of reports for how itnfpa way we can do real-time numbers and we can get to finish this so that we can have numbers, that we can compare our organization to. for example, we've got l.a. fire department and then fire department new york having questions about what their times mean. well, if we had a data spot that we could get real-time numbers from, i believe that's an incredible value. >> so what you're sharing with us is that a reduction in the budget has -- because it's a fairly lean agency. it has real impact locally. mr. o'connor, do you have a comment about that? >> yes, to piggyback on what the chief referenced. we all recognize that the fire service is inherently a local operation. but the chairman referenced the

landmark america's burning in 1973. and frankly congress recognized in federal government that there needs to be an agency that is the voice of the fire service. you describe it as being very lean, and that is correct. some of my testimony was predicated on ems, other issues such as credentialing. i don't offer that as a criticism. with the limited resources that are consistently diminishing, usf is having a hard time doing its job. and the simple reality is the authorization level is great. it needs to be at least at the current level, but it certainly needs to be appropriated. this is a lean agency. there is not a lot of fat there. and it's supporting over 300 professional firefighters and probably twice and a half as many volunteers across the country in every community. and we just really encourage congress to recognize that this is an efficient use of federal funds. it's protecting communities, and that really in our view is government's most basic responsibility. >> and administrator mitchell, if i could just ask you, in terms of what the -- what firefighters need and what departments need all across the

country, some of the things, credentialing and others, you would like the capacity to be able to deliver those things. is that correct? >> yes. i would like to expand our capacity and really since i have been at the fire administration, have i found we have had excellent people working there. they have a plan that is outstanding. we do not have the, really, the resources to carry all elements through expeditiously. so the reductions have limited and retarded our ability to move forward with some of the newer programs that we need to move forward. >> thank you. and i yield. >> i recognize the chairman of the full committee, the gentleman from texas, mr. hall for five minutes. >> mr. chairman, i do thank you. and i thank this panel. i just -- you have such an important job, and it's important to the smallest group of firefighters to the big

cities. and i thank your testimony and you have given time to prepare and the services you render really ought to be appreciated by this committee. and i think we do. along the line of ms. edwards' questions, she and i kind of work as a team a lot of times. i want to enlarge a little bit on her questions and some of the answers that you have given. my dad was a firefighter in the smallest county in the state of texas, 254 counties, they were the smallest. and they had a fire department, one truck. the siren would go off at night, and everybody could hear it. i could hear it too. it would patriotic me up. my dad would get up and run all the way to the fire station because they wanted to be there before lightning and bridges got there, because the first one there got to drive the one truck they had. and there was always a race future there. when it was all over and they'd come home, i'd ask dad how did it go, well, we saved a lot is usually his answer.

but it means a lot. and i have to rely on you. i guess administrator mitchell, i'll ask you, how does the united states fire administration, how do you support the rural fire departments? i have a lot of them in my fourth congressional district there. how do you support those? i guess the fundamental difference is in the nature of the rural fire problems compare to it the u.s. fire problem as a whole. and i say this. it's sad that we had to have a 9/11 to really get people to appreciate you all the way they should. a lot of communities are protected of volunteer fire departments and face very unique challenges, agricultural fires, fires of wildland and urban interface. does usfa offer training especially tailored to volunteer firefighters? and what type of resources have you developed to assist fire departments working in rural communities?

>> i guess -- you want me to repeat that? >> no. >> i didn't think you would want me to repeat it. >> yes, we have courses specifically tailored toward volunteers. largely what we have are offerings of the courses. we worked with the volunteers to try to make them more available, recognizing the difficulties and to having the time to get additional training. so we work more to expand the online offers and the in-the-field courses that go out through the states, state fire training. much of the basic training is done locally. and so those are handled outside. what we do try to do on a larger basis is a lot of that online. with respect to rural areas and wild land we have courses in development right now for wildland/urban interface fires to protect those fires close to the wildland. and we have some wildland

courses that are being offered through the national wildland coordinating group. so we're -- i guess the overall answer is that we're reaching out, trying to make the courses more available to the volunteers, and working with the volunteer associations also that helped that to happen. >> thank you for that. and i think it's very important. i yield back my time, mr. chairman. >> thank you very much, mr. chairman. and i now recognize ms. domenici for five minutes. >> thank you very much, mr. chairman. i want to join the other members of this committee in thanking you all for the work that you do to keep our communities safe. administrator mitchell, if your testimony, you talked about the indirect costs of fire and estimate that according to your testimony here, the indirect costs, which include things like lost business, medical expenses, temporary lodgings, psychological damage may be as

much as eight to ten times higher than the direct cost of fire. and that just emphasizes the importance of training and education and prevention. and i know that right now many communities not only in my district and state, but across this country are struggling and don't have the resources they need at the local level. to do all the work that they need to do. so what i would like you to do, maybe dr. hall, because you mentioned this in your testimony. can you talk about the progress that has been made with the areas that are targeted, for example, with the assistance to firefighters and the safer grant programs. can you comment about how these programs have really contributed to addressing the challenges that are faced by our local fire service districts. >> yes, i'd be glad to, thank you. we have conducted three needs assessment of surveys of the

fire service. and the second and third we accompanied with a matching analysis looking at how the needs had been affected by the grants that people have gotten in the years before the survey was conducted. what we found was that the particular types of needs that were especially targeted by the afg and safer grants tended to show the biggest improvements over the ten years between the first and the last. these improvements were all sizes and communities from the big cities to the small rural volunteer fire department areas that mr. hall was talking about. so it was -- what we got was the programs -- the grants are very well targeted. they're very effective. the only limit on the degree of improvement and need that we've seen is that there is limited funding.

they have accomplished as much as could have been expected given the amounts of the grants that were out there. and so to us, the road map was fairly clear. if you want to get these needs really far down, you need to, as the other speakers have said, maintain the funding, and if possible increase the funding for these grants. another thing that we looked at in the grants program, in the needs assessment was training. do they have the training? do they have the certification for various different tasks. and here again we saw improvements in need, but still very great needs. and this ties back to the outreach programs that are being conducted from the academy. >> thank you. now in my state of oregon, we pride ourselves in sustainability and green building. so when somebody mentioned the rooftop covered with photovoltaic cells, that sounded like back home. would you talk a little bit about the work that is being