Older Citizens Taking Fire Safety Into Homes in Miami Target Areas
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Miami Fire Department photos
Residential fire safety surveyor was a new title added to the fire service lexicon last August by the City of Miami Fire Department when we introduced a fire prevention program manned by senior citizens age 55 and older.
The participants in the Residential Fire Safety Surveyors Program are paid $5.40 an hour and work 20 hours per week. Federal funds for this program were provided through Title IX of the Older Americans Act. Contracts were negotiated through two local senior citizen agencies to provide applicants, which we screened for positions within this program. Our training program consisted of 80 hours and was essentially built around the Edmonds, Wash., training program plus some local innovations, including CPR training.
Because of the large multi-ethnic population, we established a requirement that 50 percent of the employees must be bilingual (Spanish/English), 30 percent black and 20 percent Anglo. This ethnic makeup is not only politically popular but allows these residential fire safety surveyors to communicate effectively with the residents in the areas where they work. While there were no requirements that a certain percentage be male or female, it happens that 50 percent are male and 50 percent female.
Surveyors work in teams
These residential fire safety surveyors wear uniforms similar to fire fighters (white shirt, dark trousers) with an identifying shoulder patch and a pin-on name tag with their photograph. They always work in teams of two and in a task force of approximately 15 to a neighborhood. The teams are moved about in 18-passenger Dodge vans purchased specifically for this purpose. By the purchase of two vans and the assignment of fire fighter supervisors to the teams, the city met the 10 percent in-kind contribution required by the United States Department of Labor.
As the program progressed, we selected one of the surveyors as a timekeeper-secretary, and two of them as supervisors who are paid $3.90 an hour. In the near future, one of the surveyors will be selected as an installer who will install smoke detectors purchased by those private citizens who are unable to install them themselves.
After the first classroom instruction was completed, the residential fire safety surveyors went into the streets where they were closely supervised by a fire fighter who checked the manner in which they conducted the fire safety surveys and how they presented themselves to the public. The first day was a disaster and it was back to the classroom. Here we spent several more days mostly in role playing on “how to conduct surveys in nonthreatening manner.”
Target areas selected
At the present time, we have identified two areas of the city where the residential fire safety surveyors will survey all residential occupancies. By analyzing fire incident data for the past three years, we determined that these zones could be effectively studied. One area, predominantly Latin, had had a consistent number of fires over the past three years, most often caused by cooking. The second area, predominantly black, has a very high incidence of fire and had had an unusually high number of fire deaths over the past three years. We are saturating these areas with home safety surveys, presentations for elementary school children, demonstrations at shopping centers—all in conjunction with a news media campaign.
But beyond the surveyors, we think that the City of Miami Fire Department has developed a good total fire inspection and education program that reaches all the citizens of our community. The fire prevention bureau is resposible for plans review, new construction, hospitals, hotels over three stories, places of assembly, large mercantile establishments and warehouses, etc. For three years, fire suppression forces have been engaged in a code enforcement program that deals with multi-residential occupancies of three units (or more), and which include rooming houses, apartments, condos, and hotels less than four stories. They also have been conducting home inspections every Saturday throughout the year.
Crash program in October
On October 1 of this year, fire suppression forces started a crash program in single-family residential property that will continue only during tbe month of October each year. However, throughout the rest of the year, during code enforcement inspections, they will conduct residential fire safety surveys within multi-residential occupancies on a day-to-day basis.
Prior to October 1, we conducted a three-hour training program for 138 company officers and all district chiefs to familiarize them with the Residential Fire Safety Surveyors Program and some different techniques to be used during their residential fire safety inspections. We felt that the usual approach to a homeowner to discuss frayed extension cords and trash disposal makes for boring conversation and leaves little impression.
Fire fighters also have been directed to make every effort to convince the citizens of the city that smoke detectors can save lives and we have provided them with the necessary training and statistical data to carry this out. Fire officers have considerable experience and we have suggested that they use this experience to discuss situations with the homeowner, where they have seen homes destroyed by careless acts that often caused death and injury.
When contacting residents of multifamily occupancies, we also suggest that owners, as well as tenants, purchase smoke detectors. We want them to know how to sound a fire alarm, what to do if a fire alarm is sounded and what to do if their escape route is blocked. Beyond this, we teach them why they should not use an elevator during a fire emergency, and if they are trapped in their apartment how to alert the fire fighter that they are still in the room.
Unfortunately, our injury and death statistics by fire are too typical of the national average. Even though our city has been rated as a class 2 city, and our fire department has received the highest ISO rating, we have never been totally satisfied with our efforts in the area of residential fire safety education. But we are going to keep on trying until we get it right—after all, that is our job!
