Community Risk Reduction (CRR)

What is Community Risk Reduction (CRR)?

As defined in NFPA 1300, Standard on Community Risk Assessment and Community Risk Reduction Plan Development, CRR is a process to identify and prioritize local risks, followed by the integrated and strategic investment of resources to reduce their occurrence and impact. In other words, it is a process to help communities find out what their risks are and develop a plan to reduce the risks viewed as high priority. The steps involved in the CRR are conducting a Community Risk Assessment (CRA), developing a CRR plan, implementing the plan, and evaluating the plan.

The CRA is a comprehensive evaluation that identifies, prioritizes, and defines the risks that pertain to the overall community. It is a critical first step in the CRR process and results in a full understanding of the community's unique risks, capabilities, and characteristics. For more information on CRR and CRA view the full standard or download our free CRR fact sheet. (PDF) 

One of the nine profiles considered in a CRA, the community service profile, describes the types of historical services provided by community and nongovernmental partners and should include the capabilities of those partners. NFPA created a free template to help catalogue the information about local community service groups that may be able to help with a CRA. Download the PDF or Word version. 

Community Risk Assessment at NFPA

CRAIG 1300™

Community Risk Assessment (CRA) is the critical first step of the CRR process. Data is key in helping communities understand true risks but putting it to use can be challenging. Driven by the insights of 300 communities across the U.S. who participated in our CRA pilot project, NFPA is building an exciting new digital dashboard designed to help fire departments and their local partners crunch the numbers and tell their unique data stories.

CRAIG 1300, the NFPA Community Risk Assessment Insight Generator, is a user-friendly dashboard with customized maps, graphs, and charts to help you identify and illustrate local demographic, geographic and economic needs and utilize best practices from the industry standard, NFPA 1300 to support your CRR initiatives. CRAIG 1300 is powered by mySidewalk, an innovative Community Intelligence Platform and is the best digital assistant you could ask for.  Community leaders can use CRAIG 1300 to:

• Learn about the people, places, and conditions that are at-risk in the community.
• Shave months of human resources typically needed for data analysis to focus resources towards true risk mitigation and enhanced community safety.    
• Activate teams in the development and management of CRR initiatives informed by NFPA 1300 with regularly updated data sources.
• Engage stakeholders, grantors, and partners in cross-community initiatives with easy-to-use visualization tools.
• Communicate the effectiveness of your initiatives with stakeholders, grantors, and partners.

RESPONSE TO COVID-19

• Podcast - Community Risk Reduction and COVID-19
• From NFPA Journal® - Threat and Readiness - The better you understand your community, the better you can manage the next large-scale crisis. Why the time is now to pursue community risk reduction
• Blog - Getting My Ducks In a Row: The Importance of Professional Connections
• Blog - CRR: Where Data is (Tiger) King
• Blog - An Offer Instead of an Ask: Building Partnerships During a Global Pandemic
• Blog - Your Data Toolbox in the Age of COVID-19: Feeding Your Community Risk Assessment
• Blog - COVID-19 Provides Opportunity for Elevating Your Community Risk Reduction Efforts

Community Risk Reduction resources

• NFPA Journal article - Connecting the Dots, Summer 2021.
• CRR in Action is a new blog series that asks a CRR leader three questions about their initiatives and process. Read their interviews:
  • Lieutenant Erin Stehle of Harrisonburg Fire Department
  • Community Risk Educator Patrick Corran of La Crosse Fire Department
  • Lieutenant Chris Collins of Saint Albans Fire Department
  • CRR Manager Daniel Berger of Pflugerville Fire Department

• Blog - Wildfires are a community problem that have a community solution

• What Do We Know? Marty Ahrens, NFPA (PDF)
  This presentation provides an overview of fire department responses, home structure fires, other types of fire department calls, leading causes of fatal and non-fatal injuries, and a brief introduction to RE-Aim evaluation framework.

• Door Messaging Strategies & Smoke Alarm Waking Effectiveness, Victoria Hutchison, Fire Protection Research Foundation (PDF)
  This presentation provides an overview of research conducted to analyze the impact of door position on home escape.

• Two Years Immersed in CRR: Research Findings, Chelsea Rubadou, NFPA (PDF)
  This presentation shares key findings from an NFPA listening tour designed to actively assess the landscape of Community Risk Reduction across the United States.

• Podcast - NFPA Community Risk Reduction Strategist Chelsea Rubadou talks with CRR Radio about the new standard, NFPA 1300

• NFPA Journal® article - Got Risk? The short answer is yes, you do. But the data-driven insights generated by the Community Risk Reduction process can help you identify, prioritize, and minimize the hazards that keep you awake at night, May/June 2019.

• News release - NFPA and mySidewalk to develop Community Risk Assessment tool

Questions?

Contact us at CRR@nfpa.org.