Annual Reports Make Good Public Relations
features
The Editor’s Opinion Page
Every so often we run through a bunch of annual fire department reports that are sent in to us. Some come from a big city, some from a small city and some—not many—from a volunteer department. The purpose behind these annual reports is, or should be, to make points with the town fathers and particularly with the town citizens. The aim, of course, is to get more and better support for the department.
Some of these annual reports are excellent—lengthy but not too lengthy, well presented on good paper with good graphics and photos and an attractive cover. Others are mediocre, and some are absolutely poor. But no matter how you grade them, they are better than not submitting anything.
The annual report should begin with a letter of submission (common to all reports) written by the chief of department and addressed to the mayor, or city council, or city manager or whoever runs the town, village or fire district. This letter should contain a summary of the activities of the department for the past year. It should be carefully written, and in effect provide a “narrative hook” that leads a reader into the rest of the report. And it’s the rest of the report that counts.
Unlike policemen, fire fighters, for the most part, are confined to their stations. As a consequence, few citizens ever get a chance to see them. They work in obscurity, so to speak, behind closed doors. And it is this obscurity that leads to the checker-playing image that many citizens still hold for the fire fighter.
The report, then, should put this image to rest. A recent report that we received contained 40 fact-filled pages. It led off with a chart of the number of fires fought in the previous year—with a paragraph or two given to the longest or most unusual fires. This section demonstrated that fire fighters do leave that station many times in the course of a year, and on errands fraught with danger to life and limb.
Another upfront section was the report from the fire prevention office. This is another area which takes the fire fighters out from behind the walls to the people they serve. It was pointed out in this section that the fire prevention bureau had continued success in reducing the threat to life and property through an aggressive program of code enforcement.
In addition, there were well-written sections on personnel, training, communications, apparatus and even the ladies auxiliary. All were backed up with clear charts and diagrams. All in all, it was a job well done, and one which would be well received by the people it was intended for.
What is more important, this report was an exercise in good public relations—an aspect of the annual fire department report that many departments overlook.
