Bottom Line: The Fire Service Role in National Preparedness Month

By Chief Dennis Compton
September 2006

Each September, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security sponsors National Preparedness Month in a nationwide effort to encourage Americans to prepare for emergencies in their homes, businesses and schools. This year the Department’s goals are to increase public awareness about the importance of family emergency preparedness and to urge individuals to make themselves and their loved ones better prepared.

Because our Nation’s fire service plays such a vital role in community safety education, every fire department should embrace Home Preparedness Month locally and make it an active focal point for community outreach this fall.

You’ve already met with tremendous success in educating your constituents about the need for household smoke alarms and well planned and practiced fire drills. So it’s a natural extension for your department to help families also recognize the need to be prepared for any emergency - from home fires to natural disasters to terror threats.

No one is better prepared or more trusted than you to guide your community through this important planning process. With your help, children and adults alike can appreciate the need for emergency preparedness and accept the responsibility for taking personal action to improve their safety.

You have a wide range of resources at hand to help you communicate these important messages.

• Start with Ready.gov where you can download checklists and brochures for individuals and families, and helpful materials for businesses.
• For educational outreach to children, be sure to access Ready Kids, which presents non-threatening and informative preparedness activities online, along with helpful guidance for parents and teachers.
• The Citizens Corps is another great asset to your department, both online and through Citizen Corps Councils and Partner Programs.

In addition to these valuable federal programs, you should be aware of two important private-sector programs that the Home Safety Council is spearheading: the Get Ready with Freddie middle school program and the Home Safety Literacy Project, both of which earned Fire Prevention and Safety Grant funding from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

• Get Ready with Freddie is an exciting new family readiness program for third and fourth graders, with print and video components developed in both English and Spanish. HSC is distributing the curriculum and video at no charge to classrooms across the U.S. and to members of the HSC Expert Network.

As important as it is to communicate basic preparedness messages to our Nation’s youth we must ensure their parents and caregivers are also well prepared to take action.

• You can increase your confidence in reaching more members of your community by using the new Home Safety Literacy Project emergency preparedness materials for adults. These innovative teaching tools are designed for non-English-speaking adults and those with low English literacy, but their Easy-To-Read text and carefully designed illustrations make them appealing for all adult audiences.

I hope you’ll get involved and use these great resources to help boost family emergency preparedness in your community. We need your help and so does your community.

Chief Compton is a well-known speaker and the author of several books, including the When in Doubt, Lead three-part series and Mental Aspects of Performance for Firefighters and Fire Officers. He is Co-Editor of the current edition of the ICMA textbook Managing Fire and Rescue Services. He was the Fire Chief in Mesa, Arizona for five years and Assistant Fire Chief in Phoenix, Arizona, where he served for twenty-seven years. Chief Compton is Vice Chair of the Home Safety Council Board of Directors, a member of the National Fallen Firefighters Foundation Board of Directors, and serves on the George Washington University Homeland Security Policy Institute Steering Council.