New handout on 'Hoarding: Issues for the Fire Service'

Many fire departments are experiencing serious fires, injuries, and deaths as the result of compulsive hoarding behavior. The excessive accumulation of materials in homes poses a significant threat to firefighters fighting fires and responding to other emergencies in these homes and to residents and neighbors.

Often, the local fire department will be contacted to help deal with this serious issue. Since studies suggest that between three and five percent of the population are compulsive hoarders, fire departments must become familiar with this issue and how to effectively handle it.

Now, NFPA has published a new, free guide all about hoarding and the issues for the fire service to be aware of. The document covers what the fire service can do when they become aware of a hoarding situation, how to talk to someone regarding hoarding, and some of the risks hoarding poses for these fire service members. 

Download the free guide on hoarding through NFPA's website. 

If you are interested in reading more about this problem, NFPA has featured hoarding in a recent issue of NFPA Journal - check out the story online. 

Comments

[Cheap Storage london]

Its true that these hoarding situation are really the big cause for loss of lives and money and a proper guidance is needed to get rid of these situation and I appreciate the efforts of the department that they are gonna implement in near future

[Hector Lagomasino]

Thank you for the handout. I am doing a presentation for my fire department and I plan on using it.
The presentation is on hoarding and our responses to those types of calls.
We will discuss recognition, responsibility, tracking and creating a local task force.
i'll keep checking back to yuor blog.

[Robert Kelley]

The people of the community should participate in fire prevention and part of their job is to make sure that firefighters can do their jobs with ease so that fires will easily be suppressed. Hoarding should be prevented or stopped.