smoke alarm program

[Nicholas MacGillivray]

hello all. just wondering how many departments out there are doing a door to door smoke alarm program? we have always done a door to door program, focusing on specific homes each year. I normally task each of our stations with specific homes to visit, i even map it out and give each of our stations a list of homes, but in the passed few years i get less and less interest from our members to participate, so im looking into what other departments are doing, i see a few departments doing online questionnaires, and that may be an avenue, but just curious what everyone else is doing. thanks

[Steve Fowlds]

Nicholas – In Pickering we still run a door to door program in the spring and fall, plus in specific neighborhoods following a fire. The program is taught to all firefighters as being part of their job right from recruit class.   That said I don’t believe there is much resistance to the program here anymore, its just another task that needs to get done.

[Shane Stein]

At Central York Fire Services, we have two programs. A Stay Fire Smart program where crews go to houses in select areas and door knock to provide safety information. Crews are assigned a certain number of homes in a given area. Not optional.

We also run a door to door smoke alarm campaign where we go to houses throughout the later spring and summer. We check, test and provide smoke alarms (if necessary). Specific neighbourhoods are pre-determined each year. We hire two students from a college fire protection/safety course to do this campaign.

[John Wilson]

We also have one here in Perth. Historically it’s been on a training night (usually the first in October so it’s close to FPW) so the troops are here anyway.  We’ve focused on a different area of Town each year with the intention that after 5 years, we’d be back at the start again.  I’m doing it differently this year that we are going to the same neighbourhood as 2017 (we missed 2018 due to other training requirements). Rather than just giving the guys specific streets to do, I pulled the actual house addresses from 2017 that had someone home and created a list of the houses that either had no one home or we didn’t get to.

To help with buy-in from your members, I see two components of it: 1) public education is part of the job they signed up for – ie. mandatory participation. (I guess that’s not really buy-in now is it lol) 2) Give the teams options of when to do it if it’s not on a training night but a deadline date to have it done. In the rural areas, during the day on a weekend might be more receptive that everyone can see what’s going on better.

Another option is to plan it for a Saturday and bribe your members with a BBQ after….

Personally, I think the door-to-door approach where we still get to talk to the residents is the only way to go.

[Nicholas MacGillivray]

i am a big fan of the door to door thing, but like i had mentioned, it hard to get guys out. pub-ed is part of their job and thats explained to them, but still get a lack-luster response. i have resorted to going out myself with a few guys whenever they can. i am just looking for new ideas and ways to get a better response from our guys in the end.

[Author]

Posts