Welcome to the NFFF's Firefighter Life Safety Initiatives (FLSI) Research Database

This database was created to support NFFF/FLSI goal of reducing firefighter deaths and injuries and, more specifically, partial fulfillment of FLSI Initiative 7: "Create a national research agenda and data collection system that relates to the initiatives." Certain design and elemental characteristics/parameters that make this Database unique:

1. Its sourcing scope focuses specifically on actual firefighter/fire safety research; scientific or quantitative testing reports; published academic studies/articles from professional journals; well-researched and comprehensive industry reports and studies, including investigations of firefighter fatalities and injuries and comprehensive lessons-learned fire reports; published academic papers from professional conference presentations, and so forth. How-to articles, safety bulletins, guidelines, outlines, columns, commentaries, news reports, informational articles without citations, position papers, and so forth, even though relevant to firefighter safety, ARE NOT within the scope of this Database project. So while, by design, the Database does not include the entire universe of published material related to firefighter safety, it does contain a large sample of actual research and studies conducted on this subject.
   
   
2. Organization of the Database mirrors the Initiatives in form and holistic scope. A superlevel beyond the traditional keyword search approach was created, in the form of a practical template, mirroring the Initiatives, so that users can obtain research information relative to specific Initiatives and subcategories therein. All entries are identified/referenced to their relevant Initiatives; a key to this template appears on every page. Click on "keyword" in the menu for a menu of keywords used and to use the keyword search function.
   
   
3. It is an internet-based system, not a library Database. Results were obtained from deep searches of the worldwide web and libraries contained on the worldwide web, and more than 10,000 potential entries were analyzed for relevance and suitability. Each entry contains a website address from which the material may be accessed. The goal was to create an FLSI Database through which the user may obtain one-click access to the source material or abstract. Currently, more than 80 percent of the Database entries conform to this one-click approach. (Please note: [1] Approximately 525 entries from the United States Fire Administration's Learning Resource Center site require additional manipulation, as noted on the entry; however, most of these entries contain abstract. [2] Regarding abstracts, the Database does not discriminate between entries that require payment or membership for full-document acquisition and those that do not. [3] As of this writing, less than 4 percent of the entries require membership for document access; numerous entries were excluded so as to minimize impediments to the one-click-access approach. [4] Some material may be copyrighted.)
   
   
4. It is a living database (and, in that vein, all web addresses were tested as operational before launch). Its construct allows for users to add to it, and users are encourage to do so.
   
   

We hope you benefit from the information contained in the Firefighter Life Safety Initiatives Research Database, and look forward to your contributions to it.