As members of our communities becoming increasingly stressed and distracted, and our most at-risk and vulnerable cut off and lost, their focus becomes less on the daily details of safety and taking precautions to avoid emergency rooms and more about paying the bills and keeping the lights on. This inevitably results in situations that firefighters are called to fix. And with each situation firefighters are called to fix, the exposure to risk also increases.
Now more than ever, the reasons for firefighters to get out from behind the station’s bay doors and into the community are increasing in number. We can no longer claim that we can’t get involved in prevention due to time, money or resources, because in many of our communities today, volunteer-based non-profit organizations, operating on donations alone, are finding solutions and providing valuable fire protection services to the public. They are stepping into the void we leave open, and we have run out of excuses on why prevention is not an operational commitment.
There are legitimate challenges to the availability of time and resources in today’s fire service due to increased mandates, responsibilities and tasking, but firefighters are long known as problem-solvers. Whether it is a two-person engine company at a structure fire with entrapment or the remnants of an occupied vehicle wrapped around a fixed object or the head of a curious child stuck between the pickets of a fence, firefighters find the solution. And we should apply those same proactive and aggressive problem-solving skills to finding the time to get into the community we have sworn to protect.
With all this in mind, let’s address some of the common “prevention problems” and some possible solutions.
Problem 1: Knowing the community risks
Talking about “stop, drop and roll” or “change your clock, change your battery” or other comfortable “go-to” messages is good, but these may not solve your community’s specific risk problems. For example, if your department responds to an inordinate number of kitchen fires, then talk about cooking fire safety and home fire extinguishers, or maybe have a water can available when parked at an event to let people practice P.A.S.S. This will also generate a crowd with whom your members can speak and educate about these extinguishment techniques. Another example: If electrical fires are common in your community, then talk about extension cords, overloaded outlets and power strips, and adorn your fire truck with an obnoxious continuum of such cords to grab the attention of bystanders and start a conversation.
A sad testament to our national fire problem is that our very own firefighters are not educated about their communities’ problems. Do your firefighters know, with statistical fact, what your leading cause of fire and injury are? Shouldn’t knowing what problems and risks you face be a part of being professional (career or volunteer) and knowing your business? If your own firefighters are unaware of what problems they are risking their lives for, then is it any wonder why your citizens know more about pop culture than your department?
Further, given this problem, is it any wonder why fire departments consistently have to fight to justify their basic needs during budget review each year? Start by educating your own department and firefighters so they can effectively relay this information to the public. People don’t know what they don’t know, and in our profession, that lack of knowledge has deadly consequences.
Problem 2: Where to go
Educated and service-orientated firefighters with a wealth of knowledge, experience, passion and genuine concern for their fellow man are a total waste of resources sitting behind closed station doors, cut off from the public they serve. To find places to interact, simply take a look at your jurisdiction and response area. Do you have a school? A supermarket? A church? A senior citizen meeting place? Is the community served by a watch group? Where are your low-income neighborhoods? Are there sporting events in the area? Check your local government offices that oversee public programs serving the youth and disenfranchised for event locations and times. Many of these locations and events can be incorporated into a preplan program or a company walk-through.
Additionally, prevention efforts can be organic and spontaneous. It can be as simple as a an individual firefighter talking with the checkout clerk and the others customers waiting in line at the supermarket, or even talking at home with their own family, friends and neighbors. The key is getting out there and into the community to start having these conversations.
Problem 3: Lack of time and resources
Elaborate, in-depth prevention programs by full-time prevention personnel are great, but not having one should not be the problem to which there is no solution. In today’s busy world, firefighters need to seek out their audience and gain their attention to focus them on safety and fire service issues; this also serves to reduce the risks to which firefighters are called and exposed.
Here’s an idea for company officers: Pick a public, high-traffic location and conduct a dress-out drill or another such drill that is quick and simple. Such an activity serves as an attention-getter to draw an audience, and as the crowd claps at your speed, conclude with, “Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, please [insert safety message here].” While you impress the public with your skills, have a firefighter wonder among the spectators, striking brief conversations about not only prevention but also the importance of bunker gear, thermal imaging or any other piece of equipment that may soon be showing up on a budget request on which these spectators will be voting. This serves as a perfect example of how to solve the problem of not having time for prevention due to the focus on training—do both at the same time!
Problem 4: What to say
This is key! This is where the fire service wastes resources and misses the ability to influence change in the safety behaviors and attitudes of others. A trained presenter can do a great job at getting messages across that the audience receives. But how much of that information is educational to such a degree that the members of the audience will actually go home and make changes, and how much is just a good informative session or entertainment? How can a simple message about the importance of changing the batteries in a smoke detector or wearing a bicycle helmet be relayed in such a manner that the receivers of the message take action? Simple. It needs to come from the firefighter who’s been there and has a story to tell.
There is nothing more effective to drive home a message than a personal story or experience, complete with the body language and speech inflexions that display the frustration and sadness from those who have seen needless loss up close and personal. Those who have crawled down a pre-flash hallway looking for the reported victims in a home without smoke detectors or who have raced against time treating the child not wearing a helmet who was struck while riding their bicycle have real stories to tell and with a painful passion that is hard to disregard. Firefighters are the experts in disasters and loss, not only on how to fix them but also what causes them.
All about attitude
Firefighters come to work or answer the pager on their hip in order to make a difference and saves lives, and they put others before themselves when doing so. The effort expended on scene trying to solve the public’s constant waves of misfortune, while almost always effective to some degree, does not always align with the reasons we joined this profession. Even the best fire stop, the best harrowing rescue or the quick extrication doesn’t completely fix the damages, injury and pain. If we are sworn to the protection and service of others, and wish to fulfill our goals and purposes of protecting others, shouldn’t our knowledge, experience and passion be equally applied to preventing that pain and loss? Convincing a teenager to wear a seatbelt or encouraging a toddler to wear a helmet can change so many lives, but that cannot fully happen behind bay doors in response mode only.
Firefighters rush into almost unwinnable situations against every obstacle possible with the hope and the goal of saving just ONE life. Even when the odds are stacked against them and a savable life is in question, firefighters push on because there is always a chance that “just maybe.” That has always been enough for firefighters to find solutions and overcome challenges. This very same attitude needs to be applied to prevention!
In sum
You may talk to 100 people this year about the importance of smoke detectors and maybe 98 will just smile and say thank you, but two go home and change dead batteries. How do you know if either of them, who now applied what you told them, was about to lose their life in a fire or their home was the residence in which your department’s next LODD was going to happen? With less than 30 minutes of your time, you altered that fate. Now multiply those two people by a 20-year career. Could you have saved 40 lives? Could you have saved your brother riding in the jumpseat next to you, or the life of a firefighter in your command, from being an LODD or suffering a career-ending injury? Are those 30 minutes a shift, a week or a month talking to the community and reaching those 40 people worth those odds? You’ll never know for sure, but there is a chance that, “just maybe.”
