Bloomington Fire Department: Smoke Signals Fire Prevention

The Challenge

Smoke detectors help save lives. That’s a fact. Yet many homes and rental properties either do not have smoke detectors or do not have enough of them to accommodate the square footage and layout of the property. The Bloomington Fire Department (BFD) historically relied primarily on instincts and gut feelings as to which neighborhoods needed the most attention in regards to fire prevention. Many times, the BFD would only know of a need as a result of responding to a fire.

The Idea

In 2014, the City of New Orleans partnered with the American Red Cross on an effort known as “Smoke Signals” - a project to predict the probability of a building not having smoke detectors. Smoke Signals uses an algorithm based on U.S. Census data and emergency call data, and conceptualizes the results into a map of assessed risk by area. Bloomington Fire Chief Jason Moore moved to implement this system in Bloomington, as the population density increased to over 4,000 people per square mile.

To implement the idea, BFD partnered with Indiana University’s (IU) School of Informatics and the American Red Cross’s “Sound the Alarm” program. IU Informatics professor and PhD student Logan Paul geocoded the call data from BFD and created a map of it by assigning latitude and longitude to residential addresses. The algorithm uses census data, national risk factors, and our historic emergency calls to determine a total risk profile. The informatics student was key in helping us clean up our 16 years of emergency call data. Everything from invalidated addresses to needing to add Lat/Long coordinates was done in preparation to upload our data into the online algorithm program. The program then regurgitated barely comprehensible spreadsheets of data that were taken by the informatics student and plotted on the map.

The American Red Cross supplied funding for the BFD to install up to three smoke detectors in each unprotected home, free of charge to the occupants. While installation and maintenance of fire detectors in rental properties typically falls to the responsibilities of landlords, Chief Moore refuses to be passive about fire safety within homes saying, “We are in the business of protecting property and saving lives, nowhere does it say ‘only when someone else or some law says you have to.’”

The Cost

Because the Red Cross bore the cost of the smoke detectors, the cost to the City of Bloomington has been the time of the BFD firefighters to contact the property owners and install the detectors. Installing detectors is also used as a public engagement opportunity to inform residents of other actions they can take to prevent a fire or prevent a fire from spreading. 

The Benefits

The Smoke Signals program was implemented in Bloomington in 2017. At the time of this writing (July 2019), 187 of smoke detectors have been installed in 118 residences in areas identified as high risk. 88% of our fire fatalities in Bloomington have been attributed to not having working smoke detectors. By targeting the worst areas, we can make strategic decisions to maximize our efforts. It is also a great tool when estimating the number of smoke detectors to order from our community partners. When the grants for smoke detectors run out it could be used to make budget requests.

Metadata

City Department(s): Bloomington Fire Department (BFD)

City Point of Contact: Fire Chief Jason Moore

Partner(s): Indiana University (IU) School of Informatics, American Red Cross

Partner(s) Point(s) of Contact: Dr. David Wild, and Logan Paul

Type of Innovation: Equipment/Mechanical 

Date Implemented: 2017