August 29, 2016 — The Africa Fire Mission (AFM), which was founded by a group of Cincinnati-area firefighters from both career and combination departments, has been named the top Firehouse Magazine Community Service honoree. The Community Service Awards—ranked for the first time this year—are part of Firehouse’s larger awards program, the Valor & Community Service Awards.
Africa Fire Mission provides fire departments across Africa with equipment and training to keep their firefighters safe and to help protect the communities they serve. Additionally, the organization works with existing missions in order to equip them with fire prevention and community fire response strategies. Specifically, the organization has collected five large shipping containers of outdated PPE for use in Kenya, Zambia, Ethiopia and Sierra Leone, where firefighters have virtually nothing to protect themselves while fighting fires or handling auto accidents and EMS calls. Members of the AFM now include firefighters from across the United States and Canada who have traveled to these countries on four occasions to issue PPE and train local firefighters on how to use it and apply safe and effective operational tactics.
The latest trip to Kenya, in November 2015, provided the first-ever Kenyan Fire Academy in which the Nairobi International Airport Fire Brigade hosted firefighters from throughout that country. This countrywide train-the-trainer concept has now become the model for AFM to host training academies in the other three countries they now serve. More importantly, the AFM has fostered a firefighter-to-firefighter partnership that spans international borders.
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- Also: San Francisco Firehouse 7 Receives Top Unit Citation Award
Firehouse Editor-in-Chief Tim Sendelbach lauded Africa Fire Mission’s commitment to building and increasing the sustainable capacity of fire departments across Africa: “The Africa Fire Mission exemplifies the compassion and selflessness of the American fire service. It’s an honor to recognize their efforts and to acknowledge that because of their relentless dedication and selfless service, thousands of men, women and children outside our borders are being protected from the threat of fire.”
Africa Fire Mission receives a cash award for the honor and will be featured in the October issue of Firehouse Magazine.
The other top Community Service honorees are as follows:
- Second place: Lunch Buddies Program for Seniors – Puppy Creek, NC, Fire Department
- Third place: DeWayne Eckerdt/San Francisco Firefighters in Safety Education – San Francisco Fire Department
- Fourth place: Adopt-a-Neighborhood Program – Prince George’s County, MD, Fire/EMS Department
Fifteen others are recognized as honorable mentions in this category.
To read more about the honorees in this year’s Valor & Community Service Awards, visit firehouse.com/valor-awards.
Firehouse would like to thank the 2015 Valor Awards Program corporate sponsors: Aladtec, Alert-All, Blackinton, CMC Rescue, Continental Girbau, eDispatches.com, Fire Station Outfitters, Fol-Da-Tank, IMS Alliance/Legend Data Systems, Liberty Art Works, the New York State Association of Fire Chiefs, Paratech, Pelican Products, Phenix Technologies, TCA Architecture Planning, and Waterway. Their support and generosity help us honor America’s Bravest.
About the Firehouse Valor & Community Service Awards
The Firehouse Valor & Community Service Awards is the largest awards program of its kind in the fire service. Nominations for the awards open each year in January, with submissions due in April. To have your department’s acts of valor or community service considered for an award, please e-mail [email protected].
About Firehouse
Firehouse is the leading fire and emergency services brand, reaching more than 1 million unique visitors and subscribers monthly, and thousands of attendees annually, via its live events and media portfolio. The Firehouse brand encompasses Firehouse Magazine, Firehouse.com, Firehouse Expo, Firehouse World, Firehouse Station Design Conference and Awards, and a host of print and digital products targeting fire and emergency services personnel. Utilizing its multiple platforms and unparalleled reach, Firehouse sets itself apart from the competition by fostering a culture that encourages innovation and the use of the latest digital and database technologies to best serve its audience and companies serving the marketplace.
