The week of October 8-14 will be nationally recognized as Fire PreventionWeek. The theme this year is “Every Second Counts: Plan 2 Ways Out”. Having an escape plan can spare lives when seconds count. This years theme reinforces the need for families to have, know, and practice a fire escape plan.
Fire Prevention Week has been observed every October (always the week of the 9th) since 1922. The NFPA established this week to commemorate the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. This fire, rumored to have been started by Mrs. O’Leary’s cow, claimed more than 250 lives, left 100,000 homeless, destroyed more than 17,400 structures and burned more than 2,000 acres.
Public education plays a critical role in a communities fire prevention plan. Here are some resources to utilize with this weeks focus on fire prevention.
Our public education efforts should focus on programs that are interactive, engaging and provide maximum benefit to the community. Interpreting the data and identifying the risks will focus your attention on the programs that are most needed. Here’s how it’s done.
A key component for effective risk reduction is face-to-face interaction with community members. This can be achieved through public events, fire station visits, and, most effectively, home visits. Community risk reduction programs, and fire crews involvement in them, produces three distinct benefits.
The most important component of community risk reduction (CRR) is strategic contact with the public. A strategic contact consists or much more than handing out stickers or plastic hats at the mall. The strategic contact is a contact made that meets the objectives of the communities CRR plan, and is immediately beneficial to the person contacted. This can most effectively happen in fire department home visits.
