Fiscal Note
These funds will be accounted for in a segregated fund (SO99). There is no effect on the Expenditure Restraint Program.
Title
Approving the Fire Department to raise funds and contract with TriData Corporation to conduct a fire safety study.
Body
The Fire Department is now able to capture specific data in our Fire reporting system. However, the Department does not have a system for analyzing this data. Some questions that need answers for use in future planning are:
How do we calculate fires that never happen?
How do we calculate lives saved?
In short, how do we calculate the “safety” of our community and the impact we as a Department have on that result ?
TriData Corp. is an Arlington, VA-based management consulting firm best known for studying safety issues. TriData has produced studies for the Federal Emergency Management Agency. The City of Madison Fire Department proposes to use TriData expertise to determine whether we are safer, to what degree we are safer, and to quantify that safety in both lives and dollars saved.
Over the past 25 years TriData has produced more landmark research studies than any other company in the United States, if not North America. TriData was established in 1981 to provide credible research and analysis for public safety and government. Company founder Phil Schaenman’s previous position was as an associate U.S. fire administrator in charge of the National Fire Data Center and the Fire Technology Program
For the past 15 years the company has authored Fire in the United States for the USFA. Over the years, Fire Chief magazine has relied on TriData's research for the state of the fire and emergency services.
The company has worked with almost every industry that has a product that starts fires, publishing studies on tobacco, candles, electricity, gas, home appliances and products. In analyzing data, the company educates Fire Departments on how to put data together graphically and how to interpret the data.
Th...
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