Testing, testing...

NFPA Journal, Sep/Oct 2004 by Berkshire, Jennifer C

Four communities prepare for FIRE PREVENTION WEEK, and get the word out about an essential safety lesson.

"IT'S FIRE PREVENTION WEEK: TEST YOUR SMOKE ALARMS"-that's the theme of FPW 2004. While this safety message may sound like simple common sense, making sure your smoke alarms work can mean quite simply the difference between life and death.

NFPA estimates that 95 percent of U.S. homes currently have at least one smoke alarm. Still, some 20 percent of the alarms in our homes don't work, and homes with no fire alarms at all suffer a disproportionately high fire death rate. In fact, more than half of all home fire deaths occur in the 5 percent of homes with no smoke alarms.

"The challenge for us is to get working alarms into the homes of families that don't have them and to encourage everyone else to test their alarms at least once a month," says Judy Comoletti, NFPA's assistant vice president of Public Education. "That's what this year's FPW is all about."

For firelighters, other first responders, and educators, FPW offers an opportunity to impress upon their communities the vital importance of installing and testing smoke alarms regularly. In order to do that, however, they'll need to get the word out to local residents, young and old, that FPW has arrived. Luckily, they have plenty of experience to build upon: This year's week-long safety program, from October 3 to 9, is the 82nd NFPA has sponsored. FPW is the longest-running public safety observance on record.

Firelighters and their community allies can also count on plenty of help from NFPA. The FPW Web site, www.firepreventionweek.org, is loaded with free, easy-to-download instructions on everything from contacting the media to holding a successful open house to planning a community-wide smoke alarm installation program. The site, which is updated regularly, also includes real-life testimony from families whose lives have been saved because of fire-safety education. For teachers, there's even a new ready-to-print letter, instructing caregivers that FPW 2004 is here and urging them to check that their smoke alarms are both installed correctly and working properly.

With so much information at their fingertips, fire safety advocates need to answer just one question: where to begin? To help you get started, we've enlisted the help of some FPW experts-four communities where planning for FPW 2004 is well underway. And while they may all focus on a single lesson, their approaches to this annual week of fire safety education couldn't be more different.

Gainesville, Florida: A Dramatic Save Lends a Big Spark to FPW

When firefighters in Gainesville step into local elementary school classrooms this October, they'll have a remarkable story to share with their young charges. Late last year, thanks to safety lessons taught using NFPA materials during FPW 2003, 10-year-old Paul Jones, his 11-year-old sister Paige, and their mother Brenda Proctor escaped from a fire that destroyed their manufactured home.

"We assemble packets that teachers can hand out to their students, including the NFPA fire safety check list, information on how to get free smoke alarms and a grid for making a home fire escape plan," explains fire safety specialist Shirley Copeland. "Paul and Paige got that information last year, and it saved their lives."

This year, Copeland and her traveling brigade of firefighters and emergency medical technicians plan to make Paul and Paige's escape story the heart of their FPW 2004 campaign. Not only will some 15,000 elementary school children hear their tale when fire educators tour Gainesville classrooms in October, but the brother and sister will appear in a public service announcement to be run during FPW on kid-friendly television stations, including Nickelodeon. They'll even be featured in a calendar to be distributed to every student in Alachua County by Safe and Drug Free Schools.

Copeland hopes that hearing of a successful escape by young people their own age will inspire students throughout the county to heed the lifesaving lessons taught during FPW

"Last year after this happened, the other students in Paul and Paige's school became much more aware of how dangerous fire is," says Copeland. "The students were saying that they realize that fire can happen to anyone because it happened to their classmates."

While outreach through the schools is at the center of FPW plans in the Gainesville area, it's far from the only thing these fire safety advocates have planned. Alachua County Fire and Rescue plans to distribute smoke alarms and batteries to families that can't afford them (information about how to obtain free smoke alarms appears in the teacher packets that will be handed out in the schools), and to encourage families to create and practice home fire escape plans of their own. And for those residents whose elementary school days are in the past, Copeland and her team will have 20 tables worth of fire prevention information set up at the local mall.

"We'll get fire prevention information into the hands of several thousand people by setting up at the mall," says Copeland.