In 2015, Vision 20/20 project has released two reports that looked into the attitudes towards fire prevention by front-line fire fighters, officers and fire prevention managers.
- National Survey of Public Fire Education Managers – Attitudes Toward Prevention Materials and Home Safety Visits
- Line Fire Fighter Attitudes Towards Fire Prevention
These reports were based on national, voluntary surveys done of these demographics and provide insights into some of the challenges that need to be overcome within the fire service to help expand the reach of fire prevention programs to the public. While the surveys were not randomized, they represented a broad geographic spread and the responses came from fire departments of all sizes as well as career, call and volunteer.
Some of the findings include:
- Key reasons for conducting home safety visits include saving lives, providing more value to the community, fire fighter safety and public relations.
- Some of the concerns surrounding doing home safety visits include liability, government intrusion into the home, lack of training for conducting these visits and conflict with training and response needs.
- There were concerns voiced over the presently available free fire prevention materials and some of the reasons given for not using them included misperception over the costs (many of which are free), inability to customize with the department’s own logo and information, not relevant to the community’s specific needs or demographic and too much content covered in one document.
Copies of the report are available for download
