Keeping Michigan Safe: Fire Safety

Michigan State Fire Marshal Tom Hughes discusses fire safety, the role of BFS, and efforts to protect Michiganders every day. 

BFS Website: https://www.michigan.gov/lara/bureau-list/bfs

MI Prevention Website:– https://www.michigan.gov/lara/bureau-list/bfs/miprevention 

Transcript

Music: 0:00

Thank you.

Anastasha Osborn: 0:20

Welcome to the LARA Living Room, where we bring you inside stories about the people and the work keeping Michigan safe, healthy, and thriving. I'm your host, Anastasha Osborn. And when we think about safety, fire is often the first thing that comes to mind. And that is for good reason. It's going to be from the way that we cook, to the way we decorate, to the way we heat our homes in the winter. Fire safety truly touches every part of our daily lives. And today, we're going to be joined by Michigan State Fire Marshal, Tom Hughes. And he's going to share with us what his role is all about the work of the Bureau of Fire Services, and how each of us can take small steps to prevent fires and protect the people that we care about the most. You already know the drill. Go ahead and fill up your coffee, grab a seat, and get comfortable because you are now in the LARA Living Room. Tom, welcome to the LARA Living Room. Can you start by telling us a little bit about yourself and what brought you to the role of State Fire Marshal?

Tom Hughes: 1:14

Absolutely. First off, I think I just want to say thanks to you and the LARA leadership team for putting this podcast together. As a new employee from the State of Michigan, I had a lot to learn and that learning curve kind of gets bigger and bigger. And this has been a really good opportunity to learn about the bureaus and about how LARA operates. And it's been really successful and valuable for me as a new employee. So as far as what brought me to the role of state fire marshal, it's kind of a long story. I don't know that I even knew it along the way. If you had asked those that I worked with in my first few years, I think they would have been surprised too that I ended up in this role. So I think the reality to it is fire service wasn't initially in my blood. I didn't have any family in the fire service, didn't have any friends in the fire service, but I did have a neighbor who worked for the Detroit Fire Department. My parents are two of salt of the earth, greatest people on the planet, servant's heart, very community oriented. And I'm one of five kids. So big family, kind of that team environment is just something I was used to. And there's a few things along kind of my pathway before my career and into my career that kind of drove that. So I was eight years old. My brother was hit by a car in Southfield. Traumatic incident, 50 miles an hour, and watching the bystanders perform CPR, watching the Southfield Fire Department show up in this terrible scenario, take care of him, get him to the hospital, and he was then flown to U of M Mott, and he was there for a few months in a coma. But watching those teams work together just really struck a chord with me that you wanted to give back, you want to be part of something bigger than yourself. So I think that was kind kind of that initial starting point. And then after that, my family and I, I think I was in seventh grade, family and I were out at a Northville high school basketball game. And again, five kids, we didn't go out a ton, but we won the 50-50 that night. So I thought, oh, we're going to go get dinner tonight. Restaurant's right at the end of our street. As we're walking to the restaurant, we see an SUV go flying by and it's the fire chief of Northville Township. And so he's flying by lights and sirens. We walk into the restaurant and they tell us that they're a family of seven trapped inside. Well, we're a family of seven, but didn't put two and two together that it was our house at the time. So my dad and I got back in the car. We drove down the street. It looked like it was my neighbor's house, the fire chief from Detroit. And as we approached, we stopped. The road was backed up with fire trucks and we started walking down. We realized it was our house. So I'm in seventh grade, standing on the front lawn, watching our house fully involved and the team from Northville Township just going to work and trying to do everything they could because they had the same reports that there were people trapped inside. And that neighbor of mine, a mentor of mine, one of the toughest guys I know, former Green Beret, ends up as a deputy chief for the city of Detroit. He had attempted to make a rescue inside the house because he thought we were inside as well. So off duty, he tries to go in and effect rescue for us. And so I think, you know, you take some of those pieces together and they don't really hit when you're that young. You don't quite kind of understand all those different things. But I always knew I wanted to give back. I always wanted to do something something to make a difference. And, you know, I think that those kind of first steps. So to be honest, my first year of college, I was a freshman at Eastern Michigan. And five days into my, my college career, 9-11 happened. So school was canceled. The next day, I went to a military recruiter's office, and was going to go that route, came back and talked to that deputy chief. My dad, we filled all the paperwork out, didn't tell my mom. And talked to my neighbor and he made a few other points and I finished my first semester enrolled in the fire academy and kind of it's all history from there so Northville Township took a chance on me when I was young and dumb I assume they probably felt bad for me at some point that my house burned down in their community so interviewing with the same fire chief that responded to that call you know 10-12 years prior and I think that really set everything in motion for me so when I got hired at Northville Township again it was just being part of that team the camaraderie and the fire service is so unique that you don't get that in a lot of professions. And that's really what people gravitate towards is that teamwork and that environment.

Anastasha Osborn: 5:27

Wow. What a story. That's a lot.

Tom Hughes: 5:31

It's a lot. Yeah. Yeah. It's a lot.

Anastasha Osborn: 5:33

But it's wonderful that you're, you are where you are now. So it led to this.

Tom Hughes: 5:37

Yeah. I don't know that anyone, this wasn't on anyone's bingo card and myself included. And it's always just about growth and trying to, to, to make things better. And, you know, as I promoted through the ranks at Northville, I was able to start, I was our like our first fire inspector, our first full-time fire inspector, which transitioned to fire marshal and then to deputy chief before I retired. So I had my hands in a lot of different projects over the years, and it's really exciting to see that kind of growth of an organization where our run volume doubled, our staffing doubled, and the impact we made really made that difference. So I think all of those things kind of prepare you as well as you can be for this type of role.

Anastasha Osborn: 6:17

So that actually kind of leads me into something a lot of people are probably wondering. And so for our listeners who may not know, what exactly does a state fire marshal do?

Tom Hughes: 6:26

That's a wonderful question. And what exactly does a state fire marshal do? The reality is there's 50 different answers to that across the country. So every state fire marshal does something a little bit different. The scope changes. In Michigan, you know, realistically, it's oversight of the Michigan Fire Service. And I say that loosely to some degree because local authority, each individual fire department has that responsibility. In Michigan, we have over 1,000 fire departments from tip to tip and roughly 30,000 firefighters in the state of Michigan. So incredibly broad scope, broad spectrum. You go from some of our busier agencies or our bigger cities up into more rural areas where their needs are completely different, the responses are different, the run volume is different. So my job is honestly to work with a lot of our big partner organizations within the Michigan Fire Service. So working with them trying to address their needs and concerns. And at the same time, you're also director of the Bureau of Fire Services within LARA. I think the interesting part about the position, and I don't know that a lot of people have that understanding, is that I think the fire service thinks the Bureau of Fire Services' primary function is to assist the fire service. And it is the singular most important component, let me be clear. But at the same time, only about 10% of our staff actually interact with the Bureau of Fire Services. So we have teams in all different areas that are really working on the back end, that local jurisdictions might make a phone call here or there, but they do that kind of background work, the unseen work. And having been in prevention, I know how hard that is sometimes to not get the recognition or see those types of things.

Anastasha Osborn: 8:04

Can you tell us a little bit about what the Bureau of Fire Services is and how does your team work with local fire departments across Michigan?

Tom Hughes: 8:12

First and foremost, the local fire departments are the single most important part of what the Bureau of Fire Services does when it comes to protecting the communities. They're the boots on the ground. They're the responders in the field. But as far as what the Bureau does kind of across the entire Bureau, you know, our primary mission is to protect life, property while safeguarding the environment. Sounds simple, right? The reality is there's a thousand fire departments or more. There's more than a thousand fire departments in the state of Michigan, almost 30,000 firefighters, diverse needs from urban areas to more suburban to our rural communities. And each one of those communities has something specific that they need to work through. You know, the reality is only 10% of our staff engages with the fire service at large, which I think for the fire service to look at, they look at those numbers and think it's the Bureau of Fire Services. You're here for all of us. And that's true. But they're really primarily working with our training division, our MI prevention team, or our fire reporting groups. While all critical functions, again, we're looking at less than 10% of the staff. Behind the scenes, our staff does so much to help support Michiganders, our citizens, our communities, our locals and the fire department. So whether it's from our storage tanks division, who's making sure that all of your gas stations on the corner or your manufacturing facilities, that those tanks are in compliance, meaning we're not going to have some sort of explosion or a spill where we have wells and we have groundwater and Michigan's environment is gorgeous. And our goal is to keep it that way. So that team works critically hard for that. And then we have our plan review team and our field services team that work hand in hand for any licensed facility. So our hospitals, our homes for the aged, our daycare centers, our childcare centers, all of those different functions, those all come in through the Bureau and we conduct inspections in the field for those. While a lot of other business inspections are delegated to the locals that handle that, we play that critical piece for our most vulnerable populations, the ones that are licensed through the state, making sure those facilities meet all the requirements. And then we have our fireworks team, which I had a really good experience with them this summer, starting in June, kind of bright and fireworks season. And we were part of a seizure where we were able to pull a lot of explosives out of a residential garage that was located four feet from an elderly resident next door. At the same time, fire department gets called to a garage fire. To be honest, the last thing you're thinking is it's full of explosives. There's plenty of other hazards we're concerned about, fuels and propane tanks and all these other kind of regular garage components, but not a two-car garage full of explosives. So that team and the regulation aspect of the tents and everything else that you see, making sure that we're protecting the citizens, but also our first responders, which is critical to me. And then we have our fire reporting team. We have a big transition coming where we're working from the National Fire Information Reporting System, or NFERS, that later this year, nationally, that's changing for the first time in really about 50 years. And we're moving to NERIS, which is the National Emergency Reporting Information System. So switching from fire to emergencies, because that's That's the scope of the fire service has grown so substantially that it will allow us to capture more information and move a lot quicker, adapt to emerging technologies and get better information across the fire service, which we can use to then target our education messages, target our funding, target our resources. We have our cannabis division that, again, kind of works in concert with our field services and our plan review teams to make sure that those programs run clear and safe and smooth for everybody. And we have our firefighter training division, which I mentioned. We have a very small staff, but we're responsible for all certification training in the state of Michigan. Along with, we have our Q course program, which is kind of our local delegated authority to the individual counties where we can use some of those firework safety funds that are collected to then provide fire training back to the state of Michigan. It's a really great avenue for us to bring training to the locals at no cost. So those are tremendously valuable. And then, of course, our MI prevention program, which I think a lot of people are already aware of, that we're continuing to build out that. And the team there has done just an incredible job building that to this point.

Anastasha Osborn: 12:25

And you kind of touched on a little bit of the Bureau of Fire Services, or you might hear us for the public, you might hear us referred to them as BFS. And so, of course, you're part of the larger LARA family here in state government. So how does your bureau connect with the work happening in other areas of the department, with other bureaus and agencies that we have?

Tom Hughes: 12:43

And as on some of your podcasts, everyone has said educate before you regulate. And that was something that was told to me very early in my first few days working here. And it hits home because coming from a fire marshal's office, my goal was always, it was the concept from a mentor of mine years ago that, you know, we're packing the parachutes. So it's the work that goes unseen. It's all the work you do on the backside to protect your responders, to protect the community, really hard to measure from time to time. And the reality is that's exactly what BFS does. But the educate before you regulate concept is the same thing I use as fire marshal, which is educate a compliance. A lot of times people don't know what they don't know. And it's our job to kind of be that representative body for them to be able to ask those questions and answer those questions and really serve the public. And so I think that when people see licensing and regulatory affairs, the term regulatory scares people. And our job is to break down some of those barriers. There's absolutely a place for regulation. It's necessary in the job that we do. But I think the education piece is really what we're driving back to the audience and to the stakeholders, making sure they understand that and they feel connected to the Bureau.

Anastasha Osborn: 13:48

Yeah. So that really helps to kind of paint a picture of behind the scenes work. But I want to talk fire safety for Michiganders. Absolutely. So what are the most common fire hazards that you see in Michigan homes?

Tom Hughes: 14:00

Sure. And I think municipality to municipality would tell you something a little bit different. When we look at it from a statewide standpoint, we're looking realistically. The truth about fire is it's mostly human related. That's the reality. So you'll hear a lot of things about electrical and yes, are there electrical fire there are. The electrical in our homes today, inspected, permitted, going through the process, are actually very safe. However, we have new emerging threats and new emerging needs within the fire service. Currently, in 2025, our most common areas for fires to start are the kitchen, the living room, and the bedroom. And yes, in 2025, smoking still remains our number one cause of fire fatalities. Cooking comes in at a very close second. So those are still things that, you know, we've been talking about since 1975, the same issues we still have today. And while our message is strong with MI prevention, the team and the work they're doing, we know we need to continue pushing those things forward. We still have issues. We still have fatal fires and they're just far too many. The impact of a fatal fire on a community, you know, that there's the family that's involved. There's the actual community and the fire service who then responding to those calls and having to, to deal with the backend of those things is just so difficult. So I would say those are the, the big couple. And then I would be remiss not to mention lithium ion batteries. That's a concern that everybody has. And the reality is we're working on some programming from a national level that we can help bring in. New York has a really strong, robust program where they're working on lithium ion battery safety due to all the micromobility devices where they're taking them from the streets and they're taking them and putting them in their apartment building or in their condo complex. And it impacts that entire building when you're doing that. So that's the a big emerging one that I think we're looking at right now.

Anastasha Osborn: 15:49

So you mentioned MI Prevention. And will you tell our listeners a little bit about what MI Prevention is?

Tom Hughes: 15:56

Yeah, absolutely. So MI Prevention or MI Prevention started not quite a decade ago. And that program was really about that's our community risk reduction piece and what community risk reduction means. The reality is years ago, it would have been your Fire Prevention Bureau. It would have been that was just the title of those components. But as time has gone on, we realize it's more than just fire. There's other pieces that we have to take in based on your run volume, the type of incidents you're seeing, and how we address those hazards. So you're really identifying your community risks, and that can be done at a local level, and then we also do that at the state level. So MI Prevention collects data from all of our partners in the field. Over 700 fire departments have signed on as part of that program. We're able to distribute smoke alarms across the state for that, free of charge, with our partners in the community. local fire department signs up for the program. They're able to get smoke alarms from us and they do the actual installations. And to date, we're well over a hundred saves from those alarms that have been installed.

Anastasha Osborn: 16:58

I will give a shout out. I actually bought a house last year in Holt, so Delhi Township. And when I moved in, the house had very old, outdated smoke alarms. And I called my local fire department and I asked if they had free smoke detectors and they came out. They didn't install them. And they also, I didn't ask, but they actually asked me if I had any carbon monoxide detectors. And I said, I didn't. And they said, we're going back to the fire department and we're going to bring some back for your home. And it was really, honestly, it was, it was very sweet and it was very kind and thoughtful. And, you know, they brought over a couple and they installed everything and I, it was very nice and I was very appreciative. And again, it was free of charge. They didn't charge me anything and it was very nice.

Tom Hughes: 17:43

It really is an incredible program. We're incredibly lucky to have the, the appropriation of the funding to be able to do that and to continue that. And I think the impact, you know, we talk about the impact, you know, those are only the reports we get back on those saves and some of those things. So there are times where, you know, it might be a small fire that the fire department's not even being called for those, but the family got out, they reacted, they took action. So measuring prevention is really difficult. And we collect that data from the field. We collect that data from our partners in the fire service. And that's how we try to target our populations, you know, to build on some of the that we run into, I think from a safety standpoint for years, we taught elementary schools, right? And every fire department should continue to do that, please. There's absolutely value in that. We created programs and you kind of create that lifelong safety culture by doing that in those children. But what we're really finding is it's our senior population that's most at risk. And the last message they may have received would have been when they were kids. And the focus is on stop, drop, and roll. And when we would walk into school We would ask them about fire safety and we said, what do you do in case of a fire? And all of a sudden there's 25 kids rolling around on the ground. I was like, I think we missed something here. We're not quite getting the picture. So, you know, yes, there's a place for that when your clothes are on fire, but that's not what you do when there's a fire. About escape planning and all those other pieces. And our senior population just gets missed in this. And some of it is the lack of social media access, the lack of family involvement, the lack of these other pieces where they don't have the information. You know, and the reality is fire's changed. In the last 40 years, fire is completely different than it was because of how homes are constructed. We have these modern open floor plans where you might walk into a 4,000 square foot house on a regular basis that has three or four doors on the entire first floor. We don't have that compartmentalization anymore. So fire travels through. And then you look at our synthetic furnishings. So all the new, you know, nothing is cotton and wool and natural fibers, wood any longer. It's all composites. and glues and other pieces, and it burns a lot hotter a lot faster. So we reach flashover a lot faster to where 40 years ago you had 17 minutes to escape a house fire. Today you have less than three. So when you look at that senior population, we have medications, we have hearing impairments, we have mobility issues. That three minutes means something. And nationally, if you're over 60, you're twice as likely to die in a fire. If you're over 70, you're three times as likely in a if you're over 80 or four times as likely. And that stands up to our statistics, which is 61% of our fatal fires in Michigan this year alone are those over the age of 60. So our real big push now is trying to find a way to connect to that group of people, whether it's through library associations or other areas where social media may not be that avenue for us.

Anastasha Osborn: 20:35

Yeah, absolutely. I kind of want to switch gears a little bit. As we head into the holidays, these hazards can look a little bit different. You kind of mentioned already some of the top ones. You mentioned kitchen, what people were probably cooking for the holidays. What are a few top safety reminders families should keep in mind?

Tom Hughes: 20:52

Absolutely. The holidays do change everything. So the fire service is seasonal in a variety of ways. You know, during the summer, we may have fireworks. We may have some of these other things that are taking place. But in the wintertime, as we close our doors and we kind of start to button up, home heating is still a primary issue. But at the same time, then you have decorations and overloading circuits and overloading, you cord. And the reality is because we can purchase all these pieces now from Amazon or, you know, from these other companies, they don't all hold up to the same standards. So the replacement products, the non-manufacturer products, you start blending those different pieces together and it can create issues for you. So yes, while cooking increases during the next few months over the year, that's absolutely still a major concern. People put stuff on the stove, they go sit down on the couch for a second and they fall asleep. They're tired. Well, they left it on the stove and we now have a kitchen fire. They can expand from there. So cooking is still a major issue. Again, smoking is still going to be that primary function. But there's all these other little pieces that kind of change seasonally as you go out through the year.

Anastasha Osborn: 22:04

Yeah. And then we also talked about alarms and carbon monoxide detectors and all of that stuff. But we also kind of mentioned, you know, the populations that we're concerned about it getting out there's a fire you talked about the kids at school and them learning the proper ways to get out of the home when there is a fire any advice for families to create or practice a fire escape plan?

Tom Hughes: 22:27

Absolutely it's critical we do with our kids my kids are eight and ten and we still hammer this down them on a regular basis so it's a matter of knowing two ways out making sure you have two ways to get out of it whether it's a door whether it's a window based on your function based on your ability I think the one missing piece of that that we're really good about the parents and the children. But again, it's not looking at our senior group and saying, well, adults, we don't need to do an escape plan. That's for kids. The reality is it's not. It's practicing what you preach, and it's making sure you're prepared for when that happens. It's dark, middle of the night. You're not quite alert yet. You don't really know what's going on when something happens. You hear the alarm go off, and if your initial reaction is, oh, this is so-and-so cooking or whatever the case is, it becomes that Boy Who Cried Wolf. And it's understanding what to do, what actions to take, and how to get yourself out of that environment based on your abilities. So again, if you're a little slower to get moving, we want to make sure we have that. You know, we still have a major problem with fire fatalities for our disabled community. So we're, you know, roughly 30% of our fire fatalities are from the disabled population. But we also offer alarms for them, different alarms. We have bed shakers that go right next to the bed and a little A little device slides under your mattress or under your pillow. And when your smoke alarm activates, that device on your nightstand connects to that device and it vibrates the bed. So if you have a hearing impairment or something like that, you can connect to it. Or there's strobes that can be added into those different areas. So we have a lot of opportunities for people. And I think it's a matter of just getting the message out so they know that they exist and they're out there and we can help them do that.

Anastasha Osborn: 24:10

Yeah. And is there a place on the LARA website where these individuals who are listening can go and find more information?

Tom Hughes: 24:16

Yeah, so our MI Prevention page has kind of all the links to everything. The individual fire departments, we have an app that they use. That's how they request new alarms, how they become a partner, how they report defective alarms, all those different things all run through our MI Prevention app.

Anastasha Osborn: 24:32

Perfect. And for our listeners, we'll add those on the show notes too so it's easy to access for you.

Tom Hughes: 24:37

I think the reality is it's everyone's job. Fire safety is everyone's job. It doesn't fall just to your local fire department. It doesn't fall to the state of Michigan or to your county or to your region it's individual we need you to take action and that action may be picking up the phone and saying do you have some alarms I can install in my house or checking on a neighbor checking on a family member who may not have the same abilities who may not have the same access helping them out and it's really that community function is we have to come together as a community for fire safety to work at the state level we have to have everyone working together on the same mission that's what I would ask I would ask that everyone comes together and they start to knock on the door next door, talk to the neighbor, talk to the widow or the widower, and have those conversations to really drive that back.

Anastasha Osborn: 25:23

Yeah, I think that's wonderful. Well, thank you, Tom, for being here. I appreciate your time. I know you're a busy man, but I appreciate you and all your knowledge and information you shared today.

Tom Hughes: 25:31

I appreciate it and would love to be back on again in the future if there's some specific questions we can answer.

Anastasha Osborn: 25:36

Awesome.

Tom Hughes: 25:37

Thank you so much.

Anastasha Osborn: 25:38

Now, fire safety isn't just about responding to emergencies. It's about prevention, preparation, and protecting the people and places that matter most. Tom Hughes and the Bureau of Fire Services are working every day to make sure Michigan communities are ready, informed, and supported. And as Tom reminded us today, the most powerful changes often start right at home. Testing your alarms, planning an escape route, and keeping an eye on those everyday fire risks. If you'd like more resources or tips, you can find those links in our show notes. And as always, thank you so much for listening, and a big thank you to Tom Hughes for sharing his time and expertise. From our living room, to yours. We'll see you next time.