Use Internet to increase public visibility
There is a blank canvas on which the fire and EMS services can place their picture, but only a small percentage are taking advantage of the fastest growing method of educating and informing the public.
After a year of design, the Baldwin (NY) Fire Department has placed its Web site on the worldwide Web: http://www.baldwinfd.com. There are now thousands of fire department Web sites on-line. We created ours to teach fire prevention, inform the public of our department`s activities, and give enjoyment to our brother and sister firefighters.
In the short time we have been on-line, we have received more than 500 e-mails from around the world praising this as a unique Web site. It may not be the best, but it`s worth a visit, especially to encourage other departments to create a Web presence.
A few highlights: the opening page, “Where on Earth are we?”; “100th Anniversary”; “100 Years of Apparatus”; our community`s history from the Ice Age through today; historical photographs; and a memorial page to Firefighter Stephen Barry, a Baldwin firefighter killed in the line of duty.
Gary Eckels
Webmaster
Baldwin (NY) Fire Department
