Transcript: Mayor Adams and FDNY Commissioner Tucker Declare 2025 “Fire Prevention Year” in New York City in Honor of 100th Anniversary of National Fire Prevention Week

March 13, 2025

Deputy Mayor Kaz Daughtry, Public Safety: I'm Deputy Mayor for Public Safety Kaz Daughtry. I'm joined here today by the mayor of the City of New York, Mayor Eric Adams, and the fire commissioner, Robert Tucker, first deputy commissioner, Mark Guerra. We're also joined by members of the FDNY leadership, Chief of Fire Prevention Thomas Currao, the Chief Fire Marshal Daniel Flynn, Deputy Commissioner of Support Operations Kat Thomas, and the Executive Director for Community Affairs Fabricio Caro. 

There's a reason why FDNY is called New York's bravest and the best. It takes guts for our firefighters to run into a burning building. It takes courage for our EMTs and our paramedics to save people who are on the brink of losing their lives. But [their] work isn't just about responding to emergencies, it's about preventing them. They're out in our communities every single day teaching families how to stay safe, showing people what to do if a fire breaks out, and making sure New Yorkers have the tools they need to protect themselves and their homes. 

But this year, the FDNY is taking it a step even further. We do not want to see a single person lose their life, lose a loved one, lose their home to a fire that could have been prevented, which is why we are here today to let New Yorkers know that we are doing what we are doing to protect them. And I ask everyone to join us and to keep in their part and to keep our city safe. For more information, I could turn it over to Mayor Eric Adams 

Mayor Eric Adams: Thanks so much, D.M. Daughtry. And I think that it is really, in all of our mind, what happened at the beginning of this administration up in the Bronx, Twin Park Towers, 17 people lost their lives due to a fire. I remember returning there the day later and walking through the building and watching on the walls the thick smoke and many firefighters having to crawl along the floor to try to identify where bodies were. And just the skill that's involved with fighting a fire. People believe it's about just pulling up a truck and putting water on a fire, but the commissioner and his team would tell you it's more than that. 

There are so many different entities and operations and coordination of years and years of training that allows firefighters to save lives, to prevent damage, and ensure they respond not only to the flames, but the smoke that is associated with serious fires. And in order to do that, we need the partnership of the public. And that's what this is about right now. What FDNY is doing to make sure that we educate the public, not when the building is burning, but prior to that. 

Fire safety is public safety and it is [an] important entity to our public safety apparatus. And every day we're making sure that our city is safe and we're not going to leave any stone unturned in doing that. And today, this year marks the 100th anniversary of National Fire Prevention Week. And in celebration of this milestone, Commissioner Tucker and I are pleased to declare that 2025 is Fire Prevention Year. New Yorkers face danger. This administration will continue to take decisive action to alleviate, if not eradicate, the dangers that New Yorkers are facing. 

We already had seen too many multi-alarm fires in the first two months of this year. And we're urging New Yorkers to protect themselves through education. Prevention plays a major role in fire safety. The administration is stepping up to give New Yorkers the resources they need to be safe and to stay safe. And the FDNY will host thousands of public education events across the five boroughs, as well as provide targeted fire prevention and life safety resources to 100 blocks with the high risk of fires. That's 100 blocks that communities will be receiving this education and areas that surrounding where we're seeing a high level of fires. 

And we know that New Yorkers will take this information and incorporate it into their lives so that they can be safe with their families. But when you look at the fact that during the first year of this administration, moving away from those 17 people that we lost in the Bronx, and we continue to go there year after year to remind ourselves of our commitment to have fire safety. And I am going to be committed to doing so. And that's why we're here with the Fire Commissioner and his team. But our success is being revealed in the numbers. 

The numbers show our efforts are working. In 2024, fire deaths were down 25 percent compared to 2023. And deaths by fire that were caused by lithium-ion batteries explosions were down 67 percent. A real leadership moment we saw at the beginning of 2022. In 2023, we saw this problem continuing and we took decisive action that had a coordination of things. But one of them included coordination around public safety information on how to store and not use dangerous lithium-ion batteries. So hats off to the commissioner, to his team, to the men and women who put out fires every day. 

We know you have to be among the bravest to deal with the fire issues that we're facing in the city. Job well done. Thank you. 

Deputy Mayor Daughtry: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Now I'd like to introduce the Fire Commissioner Robert Tucker. 

Fire Commissioner Robert Tucker: Thank you very much. Thank you all for being here. Thank you, Mr. Mayor, for your steadfast support of the FDNY. Congratulations to my good friend Kaz Daughtry on his promotion to deputy mayor. I look forward to working very closely with you, as do the men and women of the fire department, which is the greatest fire department in the world. As a department, the FDNY is stronger than ever. 

If you look at what we accomplished and you heard the mayor, fire deaths in most categories, all categories, are down. We're particularly thrilled at the fire death reduction, 67 percent, that the mayor talked about on lithium-ion battery fires. That's a double digit decrease. And for us, it tells us that our efforts around a campaign of making the public aware of how to store e-mobility devices outside of their homes is working. 

We responded to more than 2.3 million calls for service. That's a staggering amount of calls. And I'm proud of those, the stats that we're announcing today, a big part of which, as I've said, is this constant effort to educate and reach out to the public about fire and life safety. And I would be remiss if I didn't acknowledge the FDNY Foundation for all of their support around fire safety education throughout the five boroughs of New York. 

As the mayor said, 100 years ago in 1925, President Calvin Coolidge proclaimed Fire Prevention Week a national observance, making it the longest running public health observance in our country. For the last 100 years, the FDNY has organized public education campaigns throughout National Fire Prevention Week because we know that being prepared with a fire plan saves lives, plain and simple. 

Today, to celebrate this, as the mayor declared, 2025 is going to be Fire Prevention Year in New York City. We do fire safety education every single day across the city. We host thousands of public education events in schools, on the streets, in communities. We provide targeted fire prevention and life safety educational resources where needed. This year, we're trying something different. We're adding to the special sauce. Across the city, there are more than 600 tax blocks that we know pose a risk of fire. There's a block in every single community board in the city. 

Using our risk-based inspection model, we track things like historical fire data, age of buildings, how many times EMS has shown up at a location, the number of 311 calls, electrical complaints, gas leaks, water issues, other possible hazards, data that allows us to categorize a block or a building for potential fire risk. Using these risk scores and factoring in population density to make sure we're reaching as many people as possible, we have selected 100 blocks around the city where we will concentrate our fire prevention efforts on top of the work our fire safety education teams do every day throughout the city. Along these blocks and in the neighborhoods around them, FDNY will surge educational resources to get our safety messaging out, which will help save lives. 

Our outreach will include door-to-door outreach, attending community events, partnering with local elected officials to help spread the message. And while we're talking about these areas, our outreach efforts will continue in every corner of New York City. Having a plan and knowing what to do if a fire was to occur is critical in keeping yourself safe. We know that knowledge is power, and when it comes to fire safety, so we want to give the public the knowledge and the power. 

Today, I'm pleased to release our FDNY Community Risk Assessments, one of which is over there. Continuing with this data-driven approach, now each of the 59 community boards in the city will have a detailed analysis of each neighborhood's emergency preparedness and vulnerability to fire incidents. In this district where we are right now, there have been 12 fire deaths in the last five years, and in each one of those occurrences, there was no smoke detector. Smoke detectors save lives. 

That's part of what we're going to reach out to the community and tell them, and working in partnership with the Red Cross, we're going to install smoke detectors, as many as we possibly can. These assessments highlight the leading causes of residential fires, types of buildings most affected, and vulnerability indicators specific to the community. The assessments will be used to work collaboratively with residents on customized fire risk education strategies. 

The FDNY will attend community events, conduct outreach campaigns in partnership with local elected officials, with community boards, and more. So, knowing what to do in the event of a fire saves lives. Knowing your fire risk will also help save your life. We're excited to spread our message proactively across the city and to work with communities that need it the most. So, I want to thank the mayor for his support and cooperation, and I want to thank all of you as well. 

Mayor Adams: Thank you. We're headed over to Woodhull for [a] ribbon-cutting. I know there's a few questions, and we're looking forward to answering them there, but thank you, the men and women of FDNY, our foundation, and our entire team. Let's keep people safe. See you over at Woodhull. 

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