VIDEO: With fires happening every minute across the country, fire departments are always looking for ways they can sharpen their skills and save lives. Firefighters in Clayton held a search and rescue fire training on May 16 at Johnston Community College, but it’s making an impact beyond Johnston County.
Clayton Fire Department is participating in a nationwide Firefighter Rescue Survey. It’s completely voluntary and its purpose is to collect data that improves rescue techniques across the country. The only cities in our state that have adopted the survey as an official policy are Charlotte, Wilmington and Cherokee, but Clayton will soon join that list.
“The data right now hasn’t been updated since March of 2024,” Clayton Fire Department Battalion Chief of Training and Safety Chris Carter said. “It’s volunteer-based, so getting people to update it on their end can be a little tricky.”
Clayton Fire Department officials said they have responded to 22 structure fires this year, making training like this so important. The survey helps provide a guideline to fire departments across the country, using real-world strategies to improve outcomes.
“If you can share that with your brother or sister across the state or across the nation of your experiences while fighting that fire, it’s a great way to network with the profession, to talk about lessons that they have learned in their trainings,” Ex Officio-Chief State Fire Marshal Brian Taylor said.
According to the Firefighter Rescue Survey, there have only been 4,078 surveys submitted since the database developed. There have already been 384 fire fatalities in 2025 after 2,089 in 2024. The U.S. Fire Administration reported 1.9 deaths and 8.6 injuries for every 1,000 fires in 2023. Residential structure fire casualties in our state from 2023 were 6.1 deaths and 24.6 injuries for every 1,000 fires.
“What we’re telling our guys is that, yeah, this is training, but we want you to treat this as real as possible,” Carter said. “I want you to think about, hey, that’s your kid you’re going in there to save or your family member you’re going in there to save.”
The USFA reported 83% of deaths in North Carolina in 2023 were from residential and nonresidential buildings, the national average however is 73.1%. While fire departments aren’t required to add to the survey, Carter said that it’s vital to have for up-to-date information to improve their safety efforts.
“Departments should look into the Firefighter Rescue Survey. It’s really simple to do, whether you have a policy or not,” Carter said.
If you are a firefighter looking to add data from any fire rescues into the survey, head over to the survey website.
