Who Failed to Warn Chicago’s FireFighters?

Last week we received an email (copied below) following up from the new Chicago pages on our site. It is incredible how the truth continues to be hidden from the public and our fire-fighters despite such overwhelming evidence proving the ionization smoke alarms in almost everyone’s homes globally are unsafe. How could this be possible?

Yesterday we discussed sending Mr Keith Williams, the CEO of Underwriters Laboratories (UL), a follow up letter. Given Mr Williams was quoted as treating the matter with the "utmost seriousness" when we wrote to him about UL's flawed testing of ionization alarms in October 2005, he will want to be kept apprised of the latest developments. Will he do in 2009 what he did in 2005? The problem for UL and Mr Williams is that they will no longer be able to hide - not now. Why? - because this message is now in the public domain. The next letter to Mr Williams will also be in the public domain, on the 'UL Letters' page along with the previous letters.

Mr Keith Williams is the 10th President, Chief Executive Officer and Trustee of UL. What’s particularly interesting is that Mr Williams is also a Director of the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA). What is disturbing is that the NFPA appear to be fighting hard to stop the mandating of photoelectric alarms (see NFPA document below). Why are the NFPA opposed to the stand taken by the union representing over 290,000 FireFighters in the US and Canada? Guess where the NFPA's head office is? Given they appear to be against the ruling of the International Association of FireFighters (IAFF) it’s probably because they are not aware of the IAFF’s stand against ionization alarms right? Maybe the NFPA offices are located on the dark side of the moon - where there's no Internet access, newspapers or TV?

No, its located in 1 Batterymarch Park in Quincy, Massachusetts. Take a good look - very impressive. Now what's real interesting is this . . .

The NFPA appear to be so anti the photoelectric message AND as you just saw on Google maps, they are NOT on the dark side of the moon. In fact their head office is located in Massachusetts which has already mandated photoelectrics! Maybe the NFPA's offices are on a remote island then, way off the coast of Massachusetts? Zoom out on that Google map and have a look. And if you want to zoom out a little more you'll see Barre City in the far North and Albany to the West. Barre City is where Jim, Douglas, the Governor of Vermont, signed the new legislation mandating photoelectrics that came into force 01 Jan, 2009. And Albany in New York is where Hackert v BRK was tried - and where the Federal Court judges stated that the ionization alarms were "defective under New York law" and that their failure was “a legal cause of the deaths of William and Christine Hackert".

If we zoom back to where we started on the Google Map we can see that the NFPA are less than 30 minutes from the Boston Fire Department. It was Boston Fire Department’s Chief Fleming who fought so hard to have legislation changed in Massachusetts to mandate photoeletrics. Now it makes sense why he had to fight SO hard to change the legislation!

Interesting - could this be a possible clue as to why the truth about defective ionization alarms has been kept hidden for over thirty years . . .
Is it because their are some high ranking corporate executives who have misrepresented the truth to the US Fire Departments? Who you may ask? Here's a clue . . .

Could it be, on the one hand, some corporate executives who for decades have paid Unconscionable Lip-service to resolving a problem that continues to result in needless fire deaths, and on the other hand, corporate executives who appear hell-bent on Never Favouring Photelectric Alarms? Is that in any way possible?

As soon as you have a moment, if you want some insight into the big picture, check out one of the best documentaries ever made, ‘The Corporation’. This answers the question, how could this be possible? Watch it, HERE . . .

and PLEASE, copy this message to every firefighter you know.

Thank you.

Adrian Butler

Chairman

The World Fire Safety Foundation

Queensland, AUSTRALIA

_____________________________________________________________

the following has been extracted from an email from Mr Richard Patton, FPE,

Sacramento, California, USA

April 17, 2005

Dear Adrian:

During 1993 I submitted letters and informative reports to both the Chicago Fire Commissioner and the Illinois State Fire Marshal.

Here is an extract from the August 20, 1993 letter to the Chicago Fire Commissioner:

“This family is about to be wiped out because, once again, an operational smoke detector did not detect the smoke from a real fire. Tomorrow, long after the bodies are removed, a clump of metal and plastic lying on the floor will be examined superficially, thrown out with the waste, and once again it will be reported to the press that the victims were at fault . . . they forgot to change the battery in the smoke detector.”

Here is an extract from my February 8, 1993 letter to Thomas L. Armistead, State Fire Marshal of Illinois:

“In my judgement, every public official and/or professional fire protection engineer, charged with fire safety responsibility, who receives evidence that a “working” ion type smoke detector will fail to detect a very high percentage of fires that occur in the home, has an obligation to so notify the public. To wilfully conceal such information (vital for protecting human life) from the public would be, in my opinion, malfeasance. Today there are 80 million homes (approximately) that are “non-protected” with unreliable ionization type detectors, installed to a deficient NFPA 74 code.”

Here is an extract from my October 8, 1993 letter to Thomas L. Armistead, State Fire Marshal of Illinois.

“The Dunes researchers and others, including the NFPA, concealed this information from you. But, now you know - and it is your duty to warn the public relative to the harm that this flawed device inflicts on the people. Perhaps 80 percent of the people in the United States are depending on this device to wake them at night in time to survive a fire. Government has an absolute duty to provide them the information relative the ways that the device will fail to perform, and thus endanger life.”

None of the Illinois officials who received my letters and the reports (providing evidence that the device was defective) responded. It is my belief that if they were not already aware of the problems with the device they would have responded and investigated the charges. On the other hand, if they were aware of the fraudulent nature of the marketing of this device and feared some negatives if the truths were revealed, they would simply try to ignore the information and continue the cover-up. I believe they protected themselves and the price for that was that thousands were killed or injured by house fires. Most of the deaths and injuries from house fires since 1993 (and even earlier based on my earlier investigations and reports) were preventable and occurred only because the officials co-operated with NFPA and UL in concealing the truth from the media and the public.