Fire safety education display makes impact with videotape
DEPARTMENTS
Dispatches
Since the cause of nearly every destructive fire throughout the centuries can be traced to some form of human carelessness, it is imperative that public fire education become an objective of all fire departments.
However, even the best fire prevention program is useless unless the message of fire safety is appropriately communicated, received, and acted upon.
Few people take that extra two seconds to locate the nearest exit in a theater, or mentally plan a secondary escape route in their home or place of business. How many children know to crawl low in smoke or feel the door before dashing out into a more hazardous atmosphere?
For most people, being conscious of fire and its potentially disasterous effects are just not a part of their everyday lives.
Last year, during National Fire Prevention Week, the Irving, TX, Fire Department made it a part of the people’s lives. In an attempt to reach a large, diversified segment of their city’s residents, firefighters set up two videotapes in one of the city’s busiest areas—the Irving shopping mall. These visual aids graphically brought home the dangers and destructive force of fire, successfully capturing the attention of a busy, distracted public.
The first videotape, “The Burning Issue,” produced by the International Firefighters Association in Washington, D.C., showed testing done on building materials to determine their fire resistance. The second videotape, “Wood Shingle Roof Fires,” distributed through the Asphalt Roofing Manufacturers Association in Dallas, TX, showed television news coverage of singleand multiple-family wood shingle fires.
After seeing the films, passersby became interested not only in the fire prevention literature that was available, but in asking questions about fire and fire safety. Firefighters manning the display explained about the city’s fire codes, area burn centers, and general techniques to make a home fire safe.
Unlike most European and Asian countries where fire prevention and protection are ways of life (see “International Concepts in Fire Protection,” FIRE ENGINEERING, August 1983 and August 1985), the United States sets aside one week each fall to drive home to civilians the important message of fire safety. And since not every department has the good fortune to have a full-time fire prevention section, when information on fire safety and precautions is offered, often to an apathetic public, it should have a lifelong impact.
