Public Education Efforts

Public Education

With all of the recent overload of "Anthrax envelopes and packages" the fire service has been faced with lately I stumbled upon something that has escaped many of us in the business.

We have spent a great deal of time training our personnel how to deal with this threat and how to protect our members while being prudent.

Many departments and agencies have increased overtime, and called in members to handle just these types of emergencies.

The idea I got for the following comments is based upon a friend and fellow instructor who serves as the training officer for a department in Massachusetts. I have taken the root of his good idea and expanded upon it. (Hey you call it plagiarism, I call it research!) I would give credit to the individual, but he would kill me if I put his name here so thus the description only.

For those of you that responded when "street boxes" were plentiful you remember how demoralizing and what nonsense it was to respond continually to false alarm boxes. Every time a certain box would come in you knew it was false. What did the fire service do about these? Well initially we did nothing we responded as we always did, because "the running cards" said so. Finally someone said we would reduce response to 1 and 1 or maybe just one engine.

When the fire service realized that there was a significant problem with Juvenile firesetting we developed programs and public education programs.

When the fire service realized that home fires and residential fire deaths could be reduced by public education and smoke detectors in the home we reacted.

What's the point?

Is there a need for the fire service to step up to the plate and start to deliver some public education on the nature of these threats?

My associate did just that and started by teaching and more just speaking with his fellow town employees at town hall and other places.

Get out to the public and help to educate them and comfort them by at least recognizing their fears. You certainly won't solve all of their fears but listen....be the agency that helps resolve these.
These multitudes of calls we are receiving we never would have been called to prior to September 11, 2001. We are being called now because things have changed.

There are many positives to this idea but there are a couple of serious concerns that must be considered:

I don't know of any anthrax experts. The information that you deliver to these folks has to be from very valid sources, (CDC etc.) and it must be very broad. I do not know if in fact we (the fire service) even has all of the correct info yet!

The info you deliver must be described as the best information as of the date you deliver it. This situation is very dynamic and changes from the govenment have occured. You do not want it to be said you gave inaccurate info. It is date sensitive.

Explain to the public about how many people have the disease and what the real risk is. There are some 20 cases, four fatalities and most recovering or being treated. We kill some 4000 americans every year by fires! The threat at present is minimal and they should be given some facts about other significant risks more important than this.

Explain to the public that some high profile people have been targeted and it appears that in this case it was not everyone.

Explain to the public why you will dress a certain way and will wear SCBA when you do have to respond. Telling them what you are doing helps calm them when they see these guys" in them suits and oxygen tanks on their backs".

Above all give them the sense and feeling that they should not assume any risk and that you will be there when they call. If they have any doubt they should continue to call. We would not want someone to not call us, after a public education session and then have a valid case or threat, so we have to walk a fine line.

Being there and helping to educate the public we serve is prudent, it is a positive action we can take, it channels our energies from responding to "false alarms" and puts that frustration on a more positive track.

All the time we are doing this we must continue to train our own personnel as when we respond to continual false calls we can lose our vigilence. Do not take these threats lightly and learn about anthrax, other white powders that are hazardous, any contraindications to what you are currently doing.

In closing, I wish to thank Don for his idea and hope that all of the folks that read this can benefit as well.