Taking Advantage of Opportunity

As a fire service we are failing in our public relations efforts if we are not capitalizing on national movements.

The one thing that I have realized about the fire service is that we have never been very good at self promotion. We go to work, we do our jobs, we don't complain beyond the station bean table and we don't boast. We go home and tell our family and friends the shift was "just routine." When praised by the public we modestly say, "We were just doing our job." Then we act surprised when something in our department gets eliminated or we are given more responsibility without the additional resources. We have the nerve to say, "People just don't understand what we do?" If that is the case, then the fault is ours!

With the economic downturn and communities looking to cut budgets, we can no longer afford to be so "blue collar" and modest. We need to get to mountain tops, to scream and pound our chests. Recently national organizations gave us an opportunity to make that climb and a bullhorn with which to scream. How many departments took advantage of that?

On Wednesday, January 7, the National Association of State Fire Marshals along with the U.S. Fire Administration declared a national fire emergency as a result of several multiple fatality fires across the U.S. This has resulted in national media attention on both the upswing of fires and important fire safety messages. For some reason the media believes this is news, but those of us in the trenches know otherwise. Fire has always been a problem -- homes are burning today and people are dying today in fires caused for the same reasons they were 50 years ago.

So while this may not be breaking news to us, we as a fire service are failing in our public relations efforts if we are not capitalizing on this national movement. While the national media is finally paying attention -- and it will be short lived -- you need to take advantage of this opportunity if you haven't already. With a little creativity and persistence you can, and you should, bring this media attention to your local community.

If your department has had a rapid rise in fires then this is an easy task. The constant media barrage of information and fire safety messages will have a big impact on your fire problems when your citizens hear your messages on the national media circuit, the local news and when your firefighters are out talking with the public and their family and friends.

But even if your department is not seeing a drastic spike in fires, study your statistics. How many close calls did you have? How many fires did you respond to that were not fully developed yet? How many fires were extinguished by the homeowner before you arrived? How many smoldering outlets or trash cans did your department respond to? These are still fires! I mean after all we need to remember what caused the Great Chicago fire - a spark?

When we buy apparatus, equip those apparatus, build stations and make manpower requests, we do not do that based solely upon what has happened in our community, but also what could potentially happen. And when we work with the media we need to do the same. You need to approach your public information plan with the same mentality and thought process as you do your strategic plan.

Local Example
Even though the Beaufort, SC, Fire Department has had a drop in fires, we were still able to successfully use the national declaration to draw media attention to our community and get important fire safety messages out. We have been able to demonstrate to our struggling local economic community that they still need to invest in a strong fire service.

• See how Beaufort used a national story: "Flaming finish to 2008 concerns city fire authorities"

Our department responded to 17 structure fires in 2007, which dropped to 10 in 2008. Hardly a "fire emergency," but we were determined to take advantage of this media interest. It also helped that the last three fires occurred between November and December and were covered by local media.