F.I.E.R.O. (Fire Industry Education Resource Organization) was founded in September 1990 and is based in the southeastern United States. The organization was modeled after the SAFER (Southern Area Fire Equipment Research) organization in Southern California. The original purpose of F.I.E.R.O. (like SAFER) was to network fire service personnel and fire equipment manufacturers/distributors/dealers about firefighting equipment and firefighter safety. As fire service members started communicating with each other, they realized they had many common equipment and safety problems. F.I.E.R.O. and SAFER were able to open lines of communications with dealers and manufacturers to solve many problems. As the decade of the 1990’s progressed, communications within the fire service improved. With the emergence of the internet and its many fire service websites and blogs, however, the need for face-to-face networking waned. F.I.E.R.O. realized that the fire service needed information about design and construction of fire stations. In March 2000, F.I.E.R.O. offered its first Fire Station Symposium—the first of its kind anywhere. The response was so overwhelming that it has become an annual event. In 2007, F.I.E.R.O. saw a need for a PPE Symposium. Realizing the complexities of PPE, especially after 9-11, an educational task group with the PPE project of NFPA worked with F.I.E.R.O. to develop the first ever PPE Symposium in March of 2009. Currently, this symposium is a biennial event. F.I.E.R.O. is a not-for-profit, organization under the guidance of a Board of Directors. Its purpose is to improve firefighter health and safety through providing educational conferences.