Mac fire dept. selected for research project The Kansan The City of McPherson Fire Department was one of only five Kansas departments, and 250 departments nationwide, to participate in the second phase of National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) community risk reduction pilot program. "Community risk reduction is a gamut of different approaches," said McPherson Fire Chief TJ Wyssmann. "We have public education approaches, smoke detetor programs and risk assessment. We collect all this information to create data to drive what we need for protection in the city ... it gives us an ablitiy to see how we are doing, where our risks our, how we mitigate those risks and how we plan long term."