One of the themes that we have been encouraging here is the necessity of Fire and EMS departments to get more involved in public relations activities.  Not just the official department PR office, but firefighter/emt-level contacts.

Whether it’s union locals or volunteer squads, nothing beats that personal contact when you make an effort to directly inform your citizenry about what’s going on and what your goals are.  We’ve got two good examples to show you today.

First, there is the just-concluded and successful effort by the entire state-wide fire service in South Carolina to get a law enacted that encourages more businesses to install sprinkler systems.  After their interplanetary governor vetoed the bill about 10 days ago, everybody in the state literally poured out into the streets to not only publicize the effort, but to also direct the public to put pressure on their legislators to override the veto and pass the bill into law.

All through the state you suddenly saw things like this:

Was this sign enough to get it done?  No, of course not.  But when you have everybody splashing the idea all around and the people keep bumping into it every day, then it becomes very effective.  In a remarkable effort with less than 10 days to achieve their goal, the combined project paid off and yesterday the legislators passed it.  Scroll down to see the next article where we cover this great result.

On the other side of the country in Clark County, Washington, another public information movement has been launched by the local firefighters.  In early March we reported HERE on the withdrawal of emergency ambulance service to one portion of the county after the citizens voted to discontinue paying the levy that funded it. 

Believing that the cutoff was the result of a misinformation campaign by the opponents of the levy, the concerned citizens were able to put it back onto a referendum to be voted on in August.  In order to keep the voters informed of the true consequences of failing to pass the levy (namely, cessation of emergency ambulance service), the three Locals in the service area and the fire department organizations have launched a public campaign to explain the situation.

One of their projects is the creation of an informative website that they can direct the voters to where they can take time to study the issues, costs, consequences, etc. of the ambulance coverage.

This is a well-designed and informative website.
Log on to http://www.emsyes.org/ 
and view the complete site.

Just putting up a website alone won’t get it done.  It’s always a combined effort that wins.  The Clark County Fire District members are shouting out and getting heard, but they are using the website as a tool to help.  This is another good example of how to get your message out.

Ok, now let’s get out there and check out the equipment.  It’s time to get the coffee pot started.

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