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It has been a simply terrible first quarter of the year for fatal residential fires. Over the weekend, four more people died -- this time in Chicago. Last week, no doubt, you read about the fire in New York City. The New York fire may have been caused by a heater.

The International Association of Fire Chiefs recommends:

• Check smoke and carbon monoxide alarms to be sure they are working properly.

• Have an escape plan with a meeting place.

• Once you exit your home, DO NOT return. Too many people lose their lives going back into a burning home.

• Stoves are not made for heating homes.

• Supplemental heating devices should be used and maintained in accordance with manufacturer recommendations. Keep combustibles clear. Do not leave supplemental heating devices unattended.

• If you are burning wood in your fireplace, make sure your chimneys are properly maintained. That goes for your furnace, as well.

• If candles are necessary, use them in a safe environment in a fireproof container and away from children. Do not leave them unattended.

• And for the long term, consider getting a residential fire sprinkler. According to statistics, the risk of death by fire is reduced by 82 percent when smoke detectors are accompanied with residential fire sprinklers.

Also take a look at the list of fire deaths from the IAFC for the first part of last month.

In 2005, the U.S. Fire Administration researched fatal fires:

• An estimated 3,300 fatal fires claimed the lives of 3,380 civilians: 86 percent involved a single fatality, 10 percent involved two fatalities, and 4 percent involved three or more fatalities.

• Injuries were 32 times as great and property losses were 8 times as great in fatal fires as in nonfatal fires.

• Seventy-four percent of fatal fires occurred in structures, 94 percent of these on residential properties.

• Ninety-four percent of fatal fires occurred either in structures or in cars.

• The leading cause of fires that resulted in fatalities was arson (27 percent), followed by smoking (18 percent).

• The leading areas of fire origin in fatal residential structure fires were sleeping (29 percent) and lounge (21 percent) areas.

• Fatal fires were most common in the winter.

• Smoke alarms either were not present in 42 percent of residential fatal fires or alarms were present but did not operate in 21 percent of residential fatal fires.

• Sixty-five percent of deaths were males; 23 percent were older adults (over 64); 14 percent were children under 10.

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The State of the News Media 2007

The Project for Excellence in Journalism will release its latest study today.

Revenue, localism, ownership, blogging and online storytelling are all main topics in this report. The report also speaks to the need for new ways of measuring audience consumption.

Staffing is up slightly in TV, but the workers are producing content for many more shows than they used to. The report lays out what most of you in news know; for newspapers, there are fewer jobs:

By the time the final tally is in for 2006, we estimate it could be down another 1,000 -- with more now expected in 2007.

When combined with reductions at several papers in the physical size of the page, the overall number of pages and [the] ratio of news to advertising, the changes suggest that American newspapers have reduced their ambitions. The year 2007 may well be one when a smaller American newspaper, more targeted and analytical -- rather than one that purports to cover the whole waterfront -- emerges as a trend.

The report says revenue for print is bleak.

Meanwhile, online advertising revenue, in general, was up a predicted 31 percent in 2006, exceeding $16 billion.

But there are doubts about how much of that growth will happen on news sites. And furthermore, that growth in sales of online advertising may be stalling much faster than anybody thought. Looks like it will begin to slow next year and could drop to single digits before the decade ends. That adds to the sense that online journalism must find a new economic model quickly or suffer serious erosion.

If the problems in print seem intractable, and the growth of online still not enough to clarify the future, television continued to manage the balance sheet more successfully.

In local TV news, projections for 2006 have advertising revenues increasing 10 percent. TV is still able to increase revenues by adding more news programming during the day, and indeed the number of hours of local news programming has reached record highs. But at some point, local TV news will likely hit a ceiling when it comes to adding programs.

In network news, according to the latest full-year figures, from 2005, all three networks saw revenues grow for both morning and evening news, in some cases by double digits. The projections for 2006 also look positive.

And in cable, where fees come both from advertising and from 10-year contracts signed with carriers who pay licensing fees to the channels, business for the news channels is robust. Fox is projected to see profits grow by a third, overtaking CNN. CNN is expected to increase profits 13 percent, and MSNBC is expected to see meaningful profits for the first time.

Radio, by contrast, was flat in 2006, with total ad revenue rising just 1 percent. More radio news directors, according to survey data, have also been reporting losses from their news operations in recent years.

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Cell Phones in Hospitals OK

A new Mayo Clinic study says hospitals' fears about cell phones interfering with medical equipment are not warranted. However, the study says there are some commonly used devices that might make heart pacemakers misfire.

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Boomers Rule

Scripps Howard News Service found that Baby Boomers are now politically in charge:

Now, they are it.

A Scripps analysis, the first such look at these demographics of power, found that more than 55 percent of America's current governors, state lawmakers, and congressional representatives and senators were born between 1946 and 1964, the era generally tagged as the baby-boom generation.

The total tally excludes about 10 percent of the officials nationwide because their birth dates were not found or were in dispute.

Even so, the percentage in office is certain to mushroom as more of the 78-million-strong boomers -- the leading edge of whom only recently passed the 60-year-old mark -- progresses through the peak years of political power.

Here is a state-by-state breakdown of the percentage of people in power by generation. The Scripps story says:

Among the states, New Jersey is heaviest with boomer politicians, who account for 66 percent of the lawmakers studied. North Dakota (64 percent), and West Virginia, Rhode Island and Utah (all 63 percent) follow. The most boomer-free states are Idaho, Alabama and North Carolina, where boomers claim just 40 percent of the top political jobs.

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Personal Trainer Qualifications

CBS4 in Denver found that there are no clear qualifications for who is a personal trainer. As a result, an expert said, a lot of people get hurt at the gym.

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Editor's Note: Al's Morning Meeting is a compendium of ideas, edited story excerpts and other materials from a variety of Web sites, as well as original concepts and analysis. When the information comes directly from another source, it will be attributed and a link will be provided whenever possible. The column is fact-checked, but depends upon the accuracy and integrity of the original sources cited. Errors and inaccuracies found will be corrected.

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