FEMA’s contributions to the fire service can’t be ignored

AP Photo/Etienne Laurent

Author’s note: As of this writing, the shadow of the annual federal budget showdown looms over government operations and employees. If a government shutdown occurs, recent history has shown that our nation’s fire-focused federal partners will not be exempt. The federal-level “audit” volatility earlier this year adversely affected many fire service personnel along with the National Fire Academy, FEMA and NIOSH programs. It is unfortunate that we now find ourselves bracing for another political punch.

During my tenure in the fire service, the federal government has shut down under a budget stalemate 10 times (1981, 1982, 1984.1986, 1990, 1995, 1996. 2013, 2018. 2018/19). The threat is nothing new, and each agency has contingency plans that allow for an “orderly shutdown,” but only time will tell how that could play out this year. While I have heard that funds are currently flowing through grants programs, departments must keep in mind that a government shutdown will temporarily halt that flow. While we don’t know yet how a shutdown would affect other fire-focused programs, it is more important than ever to spotlight their successes and positive impacts on the fire service. We will continue to keep you updated.

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As the nation marked 20 years since Hurricane Katrina last month, I reflected on the history of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) at the administrative and executive levels. We know that some have long derided FEMA’s response to the disaster, but with two decades between then and now, it’s important that we also consider FEMA’s successes specific to the fire service, particularly in light of the many changes happening at the federal level this year . To capture this point of view, I corresponded with several insiders, past and present, who shared firsthand perspectives on FEMA’s fire service functions.

To be perfectly clear, it is my personal belief that the FEMA of today has become part of an overly complicated albatross to navigate at the upper levels. FEMA and the National Fire Academy (NFA) were diminished in stature when lumped under the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in 2003. Today, FEMA is one of nine directorates that report to the DHS, which is one of 15 departments that report to the president. One step toward streamlining our convoluted structure is a single federal parent over fire and EMS . Only time will tell how first responder agencies are structured going forward, but as potential changes are weighed, we must not allow the baby to be thrown out with the bathwater.
We’ll review several FEMA programs that have had high impact and value for the fire service, starting with the two most visible for our members — the Assistance to Firefighters Grant Program (AFG) and the National Fire Academy (NFA) — before digging into other critical, but less visible programs.

FEMA: Assistance to Firefighters Grant Program

FEMA’s AFG program is likely the most impactful, yet politically unstable, of our modern fire service successes. While the post-9/11 improvements in process, equipment, staffing and prevention have been undeniable, AFG is an annual target for politicians with competing priorities.

There are three grant programs, commonly referred to as FIRE Act grants, each with distinct lifetime expenditures:

• Assistance to Firefighters Grant Program ( AFG ): +/- $ 8.7B
• Staffing for Adequate Fire and Emergency Response ( SAFER ): +/-$5B
• Fire Prevention and Safety ( FP&S ): +/- +/- $888M

We have witnessed significant investments in fire departments large and small, especially those with members skilled at grant writing . While some have opined on the necessity of some grant projects, most that I am familiar with have been clearly needed.

It is my belief that these grants were never intended to be a lifeline but were rather a Band-Aid for a broken funding stream. Unfortunately, in many places, we have not fixed the state and local funding streams.

An extensive list of grant recipients, along with many news stories and information about grants assistance is available on FireRescue1’s Grants Resource Center .

U.S. Fire Administration: National Fire Academy

There is a misconception among some that the USFA and the NFA are one and the same. They are not. The NFA, under the direction of acting Superintendent Eriks Gabliks, is one of five offices that report directly to the USFA, under the direction of acting Fire Administrator Donna Black.

The five USFA offices:

1. National Fire Academy
2. National Emergency Response Information System ( NERIS — more below); replaces NFIRS
3. National Fire & EMS Programs (Includes Prevention)
4. Research
5. Management Operations & Support Services

The NFA as we know it today is an outgrowth of the 1973 America Burning report. NFA program delivery began in 1977, and the Emmittsburg, Maryland, campus opened in 1979. The NFA supports online/independent study as well as on- and off-campus training for approximately 100,000 students annually.

When the DOGE processes of 2025 temporarily interrupted NFA programs, I reflected on the overall value of the NFA and its programs. As many of our responders reflected, it is accurate that every state and many of our own localities have training academies of our own. The NFA has established relationships with every one of the state academies. Aside from the NFA, none of these locations have the capacity nor responsibility to train responders from around the country (and the world) on their own indefinitely — that is the power of the NFA.

The NFA also hosts several special events, many of which I have had the honor to attend. Two of the most notable are the National Fallen Firefighters Foundation Memorial Weekend and the USFA Summit on Fire Prevention and Control , held this year on Oct. 7.

| WATCH: Beyond the flames: How the National Fire Academy transforms firefighting

FEMA: Urban Search and Rescue program

To gain perspective on the Urban Search and Rescue (US&R) program, I spoke with Chief (ret.) Dave Downey, who served in many roles with the DHS/FEMA’s US&R Response System, including as the National Task Force Representative for all 28 US&R teams. Unifying previously disparate programs, post-Hurricane Katrina, the US&R program established swiftwater/flood search and rescue teams within the US&R umbrella.

US&R provides boots on the ground during disaster response across the United States. FEMA, through a cooperative agreement with local agencies, maintains the 28 federal US&R task forces spread across three regions — east, central and west.

Each task force is comprised of 210 local first responders and subject-matter experts covering 19 position-specific disciplines. When called upon, these responders become temporary federal employees who respond on behalf of FEMA to support response and recovery during large-scale disasters.

Task force members are drawn from various backgrounds, including firefighters, paramedics, physicians and structural engineers, bringing diverse skills to each mission. Each task force maintains training and carries a cache of equipment necessary for search and technical rescue operations. Additionally, each task force is self-sufficient to operate for 3 -7 days without resupply.

Through the cooperative agreement, FEMA provides task force funding to help ensure readiness and reimburses each task force for the expenses incurred during a response. Each task force-sponsoring agency provides significant local funds to support the task force as well. Since Hurricane Katrina in 2005, FEMA has also provided surge funding that allows task forces to mobilize and, in some cases, pre-stage ahead of a federal disaster declaration for expected events like hurricanes and floods.
Since the early 1990s when the National US&R Response System was developed, task forces have deployed to every significant event in our nation and abroad, including the Oklahoma City bombing, 9/11 and countless natural disasters.

Two of the 28 FEMA task forces also have an agreement with the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) to deploy internationally. These task forces are certified under the United Nations’ International Search and Rescue Advisory Group (INSARAG) standards.

In an extraordinary case in 2010, six US&R task forces responded to the devastating earthquake in Haiti. The efforts of these six task forces resulted in 47 lives saved, 12 in one day.

Chief Downey, who responded as task force leader with Florida Task Force 1 (FL-TF1), recalled one poignant morning after New York Task Force 1 (NY-TF1) had removed a young man from a collapsed building. Standing alongside Chief Joe Downey (no relation) of NY-TF1, Dave turned to Joe and said, “I think your dad would be proud. Everything he envisioned — the equipment, the training — it all worked.” Chief Ray Downey, credited as one of the primary architects of the National US&R System, was killed on 9/11. Joe replied of his father, “I know he’s proud.”

I have personally been involved in and visited many US&R responses. I vividly recall the 2021 condominium collapse in Surfside, Florida, which tested national and international US&R teams. It was sobering to speak with the leader of the Israeli US&R team (part of the Israeli National Defense Force – IDF) about the unified team efforts. Watching both human and canine assets work side by side to help bring closure to the families of the 98 victims underscores the power of these US&R teams. The Camp Mystic floods in Texas further drive home the value of critical US&R processes and funding. We need to ensure that US&R responses are not caught in the crosshairs of someone’s uninitiated view of waste, fraud or abuse.

NFA: Executive Fire Officer program

The NFA established the Executive Fire Officer (EFO) program in 1985. The EFO program has welcomed paid and volunteer fire service executives to share in both experience and growth. The EFO program is the pinnacle of the USFA’s commitment to supporting the needs of fire and EMS agencies in preparing executive officers to meet their ever-changing needs. This program and the USFA is focused on supplementing, not duplicating, existing programs of training, technology and research, data collection and analysis, and public education.

The EFO program as originally established was a three-year program before expanding to a four-year curriculum in 1988. In 1990, an Applied Research Project (ARP) component was added. Recently, EFO changed to a more flexible two-year model with a single in-depth capstone research paper to address the needs of current executive leaders. The EFO program’s goal is to develop knowledgeable, skilled and adaptable leaders to meet the changing demands of fire and emergency services.
Nearly 5,000 students have graduated from the EFO program, representing all 50 states, Puerto Rico, Guam, many of our military partners, and fire officers from seven other countries.There are clearly other training opportunities out there.It is my opinion that none have had the reach and foundational impact as the EFO program has had for participants around the world.

I have both attended and taught at the NFA, and often hear comments from attendees referring to the EFO program as “transcending” and “transformational.” Read more from EFO graduates and NFA attendees:

• ‘This is a travesty’: Fire service leaders react to NFA training cancellations
• The NFA is open for growth: Are you ready to seize the opportunity?

NFA: All Hazards Position Specific training program

The All Hazards Position Specific ( AHPS ) training program was mandated by the Post-Katrina Emergency Management Reform Act of 2006, a direct result of lessons learned from the Hurricane Katrina response. While the National Incident Management System was mandated after the 9/11 attacks, the AHPS program was the first concerted effort to emphasize NIMS training and deployment strategies at each NIMS level.

To better understand the program focus, I spoke with Fire Chief (ret.) Bob Ridgeway, who was the new manager for the fledgling AHPS program from 2008 through 2018. He emphasized that the Reform Act was one of the best examples of a positive change at FEMA: “That Act came about because the Louisiana governor delayed asking for federal assistance for three days after Katrina hit. Prior to the implementation of this Act, the feds couldn’t come in to assist until specifically requested by the governor. So, they assembled resources and waited at the state borders until they received a call for assistance from the governor.”

Additionally, speaking on the horrid conditions at the Superdome, Ridgeway noted, “the governor relented when President George W. Bush called her direct. Thus, the purpose of the Reform Act was to allow the president to take preemptive action in a disaster-type of situation without waiting for a governor.”

Within a few years, AHPS was offering several hundred classes annually nationwide. The evidence of program success can be seen in the fast-growing number of Type 2, 3 and 4 Incident Management Teams (IMTs) nationwide. As a direct result of the AHPS program, today virtually every state and region has one or more IMTs trained and ready to respond whenever a natural or human-caused disaster occurs.

I was honored to serve as an instructor with one of these programs, “The New Fire Chief, and personally witnessed the value of differing culture sets and opinions that the cohort of attendees brought to the table.

FEMA: Emergency Management Institute

The Emergency Management Institute (EMI), recently renamed the National Disaster and Emergency Management University ( NDEMU ), was an outgrowth of the 1951 Civil Defense Staff College (CDSC). The NDEMU is primarily housed at the NFA and focuses on mid- and upper-level local, regional and federal disaster responders.

Similar to NFA programs, NDEMU programs are offered online/independent study (IS) as well as on and off campus. The NDEMU trains approximately 30,000 students on and off campus annually. The IS courses have logged nearly 2 million attendees since the program’s inception.

The PIO courses are of particular importance for public safety agencies. All NDEMU and AHPS PIO courses operate under the direction of Nicole Shutts in the Emergency Management Professional Program ( EMPP ).

I spoke with one NDEMU PIO instructor, Mark Brady, to gain some perspective on the university’s impact on public education: “FEMA’s PIO training programs have grown out of two distinct tracks that were developed separately but have complemented one another. The surge in popularity and enrollment for both programs can be traced directly to the rise of social media. As social platforms became essential tools for crisis communication, the number of PIO positions in emergency services and local government expanded dramatically. Both program tracks benefited from this shift, preparing thousands of professionals for roles that really didn’t exist a generation ago. The growth and refinement of these programs illustrate positive growth from lessons learned . ”

While the AHPS PIO training focuses on early on-scene PIO functionality, the NDEMU PIO programs are next-level courses:

• Public Information Basics
• Advanced PIO (APIO)
• Executive PIO (EPIO) – Modeled after the Executive Fire Officer (EFO) program

As this is likely the most valuable non-operational program available, I strongly encourage every department to take advantage of these courses. I have used many of the PIO messaging strategies during major events, which undoubtedly served me well. Furthermore, if there were one lesson from these programs that affected my fire service career most profoundly, it is that information transparency and honesty are key components of maintaining public trust. Either you tell your story, or someone else will.

USFA: National Emergency Response Information System

One of the most profound and long-overdue administrative improvements made at the USFA is NERIS, a free cloud-based platform that replaces the industry-maligned National Fire Incident Reporting System (NFIRS). The secure system will be used to collect and analyze all-hazards incident data from fire and emergency services in the United States.

Developed by the USFA, the Department of Homeland Security’s Science and Technology (S&T) Directorate , and through a contract partnership with the Fire Service Research Institute (part of UL Research Institutes), NERIS provides near real-time reliable data and analytic tools to help local leaders make informed decisions for preparedness, resource deployment and risk reduction.

NERIS is currently being rolled out across the U.S., with three key system goals:

• Modernize data collection
• Integrate data collection systems
• Improve the quality and completeness of information

Providing better intelligence will improve capabilities in grant opportunities and emergency response decision-making. NERIS also seeks to help departments make better deployment and staffing decisions that will lead to reduced community and organizational risk.

NERIS will be one of the most effective tools for helping firefighters tell our stories via critical data. That collation will only be as good as the data we put in, though. If we are going to be a force to be reckoned with politically, data will be king, and NERIS will be the chariot.

Learn more about NERIS:

• Tech Talk Tuesday: Let’s talk NERIS
• Quick Take: Tackling key questions about NERIS rollout and onboarding
• ‘This is big’: Chief Tom Jenkins explains NERIS

Final thoughts

Success is not rooted in acronyms, politics or speeches. Success is rooted in the discipline and capacity to do the right thing, at the right time and place, for the right reasons (on or off duty). Each of these successes discussed above is rooted in FEMA and is fire service driven.

Of course, amid this progress, there have also been many challenges with local, state and federal relationships. I also recognize that some will choose to argue whether the sky is blue.

We have the undeniable responsibility to succeed for Grandma Jones and our broader community . The fire service has the collective capacity, knowledge and tools at our fingertips to make our service a success. Let’s make sure that we are the ones inspiring and motivating others to succeed, not the ones balking on our promise to earn and maintain the public trust.

Informed and professional discipline has built the parts of FEMA that work. FEMA provides the backbone framework for all of these programs to function as seamlessly as we let them. Through these programs and many others that are available, I believe it is our responsibility to help each other succeed, to truly help each other achieve our maximum potential.