NFPA and Joey Gase Motorsports drive home fire safety awareness during Iowa Speedway’s 2024 NASCAR NXS race car event on Saturday, June 15 - Speedway Digest

The National Fire Protection Association® (NFPA®) and Joey Gase Motorsports, LLC are teaming up for a second year to drive home the importance of fire safety. To kick off this unique collaboration, NFPA will be supporting Joey Gase during the 2024 NASCAR NXS race car event at the Iowa Speedway on Saturday, June 15 at 2:30 p.m. Sparky the Fire Dog® (the official mascot of NFPA) will be on-site to help celebrate with Gase and race car fans. NFPA and Gase will also be teaming up at additional race car events this fall in support of Fire Prevention Week™, October 6-12, 2024.

“Our work with Joey last year demonstrated the value and impact of delivering potentially life-saving fire safety messages to thousands of NASCAR fans and surrounding communities,” said Lorraine Carli, vice president of Outreach and Advocacy at NFPA. “We’re thrilled to be joining forces again to further those efforts, beginning with the upcoming event in Iowa, and through other races in the months ahead that will help support Fire Prevention Week, our biggest public awareness campaign of the year.”

U.S. home fires continue to present a significant threat to people and property. According to the latest NFPA data, in 2022, there were an estimated 360,000 home structure fires resulting in 2,710 civilian deaths, 9,940 injuries, and $10.5 billion in direct property damage. On average, there were 45 fire deaths in Iowa each year between 2015 and 2019, ranking it 29^th among U.S. fire deaths per state. These numbers reinforce the critical importance of better educating Iowa residents and the public at large about ways to reduce the risk of having a home fire, and how to best protect themselves in the event of one.

“It’s an honor to work with NFPA and help remind people that home fires can and do still happen, and that they need to be prepared in the event of one,” said Joey Gase, owner and driver for Joey Gase Motorsports. “I hope that in working together we can motivate people to take action around home fire safety, which includes taking simple but important steps like making sure they have working smoke alarms in their homes and testing them regularly.”

NFPA and Gase will continue teaming up in support of fire safety and this year’s Fire Prevention Week campaign, October 6-12, 2024, at upcoming races in Watkins Glen, NY; Talladega, AL; and Charlotte, NC. Details about these events and associated activities will be shared in the months ahead.

Fire Prevention Week is celebrated throughout North American every October and is the oldest U.S. public health observance on record. For more than 100 years, Fire Prevention Week has worked to educate people the risk of home fires and ways to minimize them. Local fire departments, schools, and community organizations play a key role in bringing Fire Prevention Week to life in their communities each year and spreading basic but critical fire safety messages.

For this release and other announcements about NFPA initiatives, research and resources, please visit the NFPA press room.

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