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The Advocate (Louisiana)
Copyright 2006 Capital City Press
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The Gonzales Fire Department received a Life Safety Achievement Award from the Residential Fire Safety Institute for fire prevention activities.

For 13 years the Life Safety Achievement Award has recognized the local fire prevention activities that contributed to reducing the number of lives lost in residential fires. The Gonzales department ended 2005 with no deaths in area houses.

Although residential fires in the U.S. account for only 20 percent of all fires, they result in 80 percent of all fire deaths. A total of 769 fire departments in the U.S., Canada, Italy, and Greece received the 2005 Life Safety Achievement Award.

"Experience tells us that fire prevention activity and public education can significantly reduce life and property loss from residential fires," Roy Marshall, director of the institute, said in a news release. "Prevention and education are very cost-effective compared to the traditional approach of relying on fire suppression.

The Life Safety Achievement Award recognizes fire departments for fire prevention efforts and encourages them to continually improve those efforts, he added.

The institute is a public interest group whose mission is to reduce residential fire deaths and injuries, and assists fire departments with implementing residential sprinkler and smoke alarm programs.