Pub-Ed One Success at a Time
The value of any department’s fire and life-safety program is rarely known, but recently we had a call that personally helped me measure the success of our public-education programs. While it turned out to be a fire with less than $100 loss, it was one where despite the adult resident, smoke detectors and proper actions made the difference.
It began with a caller who originally had phoned the police department’s non-emergency number saying there was a smoke alarm going off for some “unknown reason.” The police clerk on duty had buzzed my office to ask me what I wanted done with the call. I had the clerk hand the call over to our 911 dispatch center, and within a few seconds I heard the tones drop for a three engine, ladder and rescue response. The answers to whatever questions the dispatcher had asked the caller obviously upgraded the call to a structural response. The residential fire wasn’t far from the station, so I decided to get into my car and tag along.
The first-arriving unit reported smoke detector activation on the first floor with all occupants out of the building. The adult resident didn’t believe anything was wrong, but her three school-age children insisted that she call the fire department and evacuate the house. The initial engine and ladder companies searched the residence and found a small fire in the kitchen caused by a plastic container on top of the toaster. The melted plastic was very close to damaging the toaster and keeping it in a constant “on” position that eventually would have caused a more serious fire.
When the fire officer asked the children how they knew what to do, they answered that they had learned to get out and call the fire department from firefighters who they met while visiting the fire station and firefighters who had subsequently visited their schools.
So despite the best efforts of the adult either to ignore the smoke alarm because nothing was visible to her or to call a non-emergency number when her children insisted she call the fire department, eventually the children’s perseverance paid off and the responding firefighters found the problem before it became a major incident. Those children’s diligence and perseverance came as a result of the public-education programs offered to them through our department, and they provided me with a measure of success, even if only one incident at a time.
How have you been able to measure the success of your public-education programs?Do you have any documented incidents where fire and life-safety programs made the difference?
