As Fire Prevention Week comes to a close, we must remember that fire prevention is something we need to emphasize all year long. Fire departments and Fire Corps programs are encouraged to continue to strengthen their prevention and safety campaigns and spread community awareness to help keep residents safe and prevent tragedy throughout the year.
Fire service organizations across the country utilized Fire Prevention Week to spread important fire prevention and safety messages and information in their communities. This year’s theme was “It’s Fire Prevention Week! Protect Your Family From Fire!” The National Fire Prevention Association (NFPA) reports that there were more than 360,000 home fires reported in the U.S. in 2009. In addition, almost 62 percent of reported home fire deaths happen in homes with no smoke alarms or no working smoke alarms. These tragic statistics highlight the critical need for fire prevention and safety programs to educate community members about what they can do to prevent home fires and protect themselves and their families.
Fire Corps provides many tools and resources to help your department and Fire Corps team organize fire prevention programs throughout your community. These include:
All-Ways Fire Safe at Home module, which includes programs that can be used to promote fire and life safety to community members in different stages of life, from preschool to older adult.
Home Safety Checklist, which provides a basic step-by-step approach to conducting home safety checks in your community and ensuring residents are safer and more secure.
First Alert Smoke Alarm Donation Program, which provides free smoke alarms to registered Fire Corps teams to install in their communities (limitations and restrictions apply).
Getting Started with Firewise, which provides information about building and maintaining communities in a way that is compatible with the natural surroundings to help protect property and natural resources from the threat of wildfires.
Links to fire prevention programs and resources, such as the USFA Smoking and Home Fires Campaign, Fire Safety for Children, Firefacts.org, and the Ready Responder Toolkit.
Tips sheets you can use to distribute in your community all year long.
Find all these resources and more at http://firecorps.org/prevention.
You can also find more tools and information about Fire Prevention Week that can be applied all year at www.firepreventionweek.org.
