Building and fire codes have made communities safer, and standards have made such equipment as fire apparatus, breathing equipment, ladders, and portable equipment better and easier to use.
As building and fire codes are updated, sprinklers are used more, and community risk reduction becomes a common tool in use at the local level, the number of fires will continue to go down, as will the risk for other human-caused catastrophic events. The emergence of the Affordable Care Act may lead to the fire service finding itself in a "perfect storm;" a storm that fire service organizations simply will not be able to navigate.
In recent history we have been witness to this occurring over and over again in the private sector.
