Public Fire Safety Education Future Tied to Documentation, Evaluation
FEATURES
The Editor’s Opinion Page
The calculated, purposeful growth of public fire safety education can trace its roots to “America Burning,” the report of the National Commission on Fire Prevention and Control. In this report to the President in 1973, the commission stated:
“We recognize that not everyone will respond to or even be reached by public education, but we firmly believe that it can contribute significantly to reduction of fire losses.”
As the fire service heads toward Fire Prevention Week, Oct. 4-10, it can look at a tremendous change in its efforts to prevent fires and save lives. Until this change occurred, Fire Prevention Week was mostly lip service and pamphlet week. Now many fire departments throughout the nation are doing what was previously only talked about—they are making every week in the year Fire Prevention Week.
Mostly as a result of the pioneering work of the United States Fire Administration in developing, fostering and publicizing public fire safety education programs, more and more fire departments are assigning personnel to full-time duty educating the public in fire safety. A milestone was reached with the development of qualification standards for fire prevention education officers as part of NFPA 1031, “Standard for Professional Qualifications for Fire Inspector, Fire Investigator and Fire Prevention Education Officer.”
As budgets tighten and chiefs fight to obtain enough funds just to maintain barely enough companies to handle current fire suppression needs, it follows that it will become more difficult to get money for fire safety education.
A survey by Fire Engineering of persons dedicated to operating fire prevention programs came up with the conclusion that no matter how good a program appears to be, it must have documentation and evaluation if it is to have a future. Furthermore, we believe that it must have documentation and evaluation if it is to have continued funding.
There are a couple of lessons to be gained. Instead of trying to save the world from fire, a fire department should take a hard look at its fire record to determine the fire problems in its own area. Then it should level its sights on a problem that has a possibility of being changed and fire all its prevention and public education ammunition at this target problem. The program must have built-in provisions for documentation and evaluation. Furthermore, the proponents of the program must be as ready to admit failure as they are to claim success.
Those who seek an improved fire safety record for this nation also might look to expanding the use of mechanical and electronic means of reducing the fire problem. The widespread installation of smoke detectors offers hope, although more extensive statistics and more time is needed to determine whether initial successes are only that or a genuine trend.
A hard decision that eventually has to be faced is whether fire losses of lives and property can best be reduced by public education or by ridgidly enforced codes—or both. A vital factor in the decision will be the documentation and evaluation of public fire safety education efforts.
