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21 March 2025
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Featured FRI Magazine article: “Where there’s smoke, there’s an awareness campaign”… Reflections, lessons learnt and the future for fire awareness campaigns by Leanne McKrill
Fire awareness is understood to be a pivotal part of integrated fire management
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The questions posed in the survey were attempting to investigate the knowledge level pertaining to fires, as well as identify key fire awareness messages remembered by the participants
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https://www.frimedia.org/uploads/1/2/2/7/122743954/fri_vol_3_no_4.pdf
This week’s featured Fire and Rescue International magazine article is: Fire awareness campaigns: “Where there’s smoke, there’s an awareness campaign”… Reflections, lessons learnt and the future for fire awareness campaigns written by Leanne McKrill (FRI Vol 3 no 4). We will be sharing more technical/research/tactical articles from Fire and Rescue International magazine on a weekly basis with our readers to assist in technology transfer. This will hopefully create an increased awareness, providing you with hands-on advice and guidance. All our magazines are available free of charge in PDF format on our website and online at ISSUU. We also provide all technical articles as a free download in our article archive on our website.
“Where there’s smoke, there’s an awareness campaign”… Reflections, lessons learnt and the future for fire awareness campaigns By Leanne McKrill
Definition: Awareness is defined by the Oxford Dictionary as “The knowledge or perception of a situation or fact”. In this instance, that fact is fires and the understanding of these entities. Fire awareness is understood to be a pivotal part of integrated fire management and its mitigating measures.
How one comes to understand or learn about these phenomena is and has been determined by several factors, namely: focus and funding for wildfire or disaster mitigation measures, the delegation of responsibility to a particular organisation and finally the communication with and integration of stakeholders and communities related to this task.
The aforementioned factors I was able to summarise from various sources of information included: a) a general survey I compiled and sent to the public, b) asking the broader wildfire community of practice and previous experience I had garnered.
The questions posed in the survey were attempting to investigate the knowledge level pertaining to fires, as well as identify key fire awareness messages remembered by the participants. The answers I received were remarkable. Effectually what I wanted to know was:
As mentioned, due to previous involvement in different environmental, fire and disaster management campaigns, I had an understanding of the key areas of an awareness campaign.
However, after reading through the survey answers, listening to a number of members involved in fire management and weighing up my own experience, I concluded the following:
Furthermore, I designed a short formula, which indicated the placement of emphasis on specific factors taken into account in the lifecycle of a fire awareness campaign.
This week’s featured Fire and Rescue International magazine article is: Fire awareness campaigns: “Where there’s smoke, there’s an awareness campaign”… Reflections, lessons learnt and the future for fire awareness campaigns written by Leanne McKrill (FRI Vol 3 no 4). We will be sharing more technical/research/tactical articles from Fire and Rescue International magazine on a weekly basis with our readers to assist in technology transfer. This will hopefully create an increased awareness, providing you with hands-on advice and guidance. All our magazines are available free of charge in PDF format on our website and online at ISSUU. We also provide all technical articles as a free download in our article archive on our website.
“Where there’s smoke, there’s an awareness campaign”… Reflections, lessons learnt and the future for fire awareness campaigns By Leanne McKrill
Definition: Awareness is defined by the Oxford Dictionary as “The knowledge or perception of a situation or fact”. In this instance, that fact is fires and the understanding of these entities. Fire awareness is understood to be a pivotal part of integrated fire management and its mitigating measures.
How one comes to understand or learn about these phenomena is and has been determined by several factors, namely: focus and funding for wildfire or disaster mitigation measures, the delegation of responsibility to a particular organisation and finally the communication with and integration of stakeholders and communities related to this task.
The aforementioned factors I was able to summarise from various sources of information included: a) a general survey I compiled and sent to the public, b) asking the broader wildfire community of practice and previous experience I had garnered.
The questions posed in the survey were attempting to investigate the knowledge level pertaining to fires, as well as identify key fire awareness messages remembered by the participants. The answers I received were remarkable. Effectually what I wanted to know was:
- What role or roles fire awareness had played in all of this?
- Deduce the success rate of awareness campaigns
- The key messages broadcast
- The target audiences
- The regularity of these campaigns or general awareness’.
As mentioned, due to previous involvement in different environmental, fire and disaster management campaigns, I had an understanding of the key areas of an awareness campaign.
However, after reading through the survey answers, listening to a number of members involved in fire management and weighing up my own experience, I concluded the following:
- Fire awareness campaigns are not a one- size fits all
- They all have individual goals and agendas
- Campaigns usually aren’t or should not be standalone but part of a greater fire/disaster management or environmental management plan (However these are exceptions)
- All campaigns need to have reason to be in existence such as forethought, a specific reason to need to deliver the talk. Usually what is factored in are the hazard and risks of a vulnerable community.
Furthermore, I designed a short formula, which indicated the placement of emphasis on specific factors taken into account in the lifecycle of a fire awareness campaign.
However, it became evident that not each factor was equally focussed on and there was more emphasis placed on factors such as: The message, the preplanning and the delivering of the message.
Upon investigation of the survey findings, I began to notice a peculiar trend; there were two distinct views: one was “There’s no awareness” and the other was “I know a lot about it”- the latter was indicative of those individuals from within the wildfire community of practice who had conducted my survey, however, very little feedback from those individuals within the middle ground. There is an implicit message here of our fire awareness campaigns are not doing such a hot job but the question is why?
A second interesting trend was from the actual fire awareness messages that were stated by the individuals, which ranged from generic messages aimed at people and their safety, to that of property and livestock protection. However, few messages about the benefits or ecological needs for fire. This too was interesting to note and was indicative of the types of messages that are being focussed on.
In many incidences it was apparent that the messages were being aimed too high or too low, often more than one message was presented at an audience but with little logical sequence. Furthermore, fire awareness and the messages spread, did not form part of a greater plan but were often standalone projects, which were not sustained. There was also little to no involvement and or ownership from the communities targeted and members felt like they had been preached at, rather than included.
Upon investigating this issue, I found out the following: Historically institutions have tried to take ownership of the ideas pertaining to fire awareness. However, ideas have been poached and therefore individuals and institutions can become territorial. There are also influences of politics and specific messages being delivered to target audiences.
Although, all is not lost. In order to face these issues, we, as the wildfire community of practice, need to address key areas to provide more successful and far reaching awareness campaigns.
Some suggestions gathered from the data used included: Being more creative with ideas around fire awareness; employing a level of dynamism to the campaigns; being community specific with target audiences, this applies to resources given out and utilised. From both an individualistic and institutional perspective, there needs to be a level of openness, acceptance of new and sometimes challenging ideas – which may deviate from the norm.
A greater involvement from local media would also assist with the spread of these messages. Further, as previous issues with institutions can impair judgement and interfere with working conditions, these differences need to be laid aside, allowing for constructive criticism and new thought patterns to emerge and finally working toward the common goal of fire awareness.
Upon investigation of the survey findings, I began to notice a peculiar trend; there were two distinct views: one was “There’s no awareness” and the other was “I know a lot about it”- the latter was indicative of those individuals from within the wildfire community of practice who had conducted my survey, however, very little feedback from those individuals within the middle ground. There is an implicit message here of our fire awareness campaigns are not doing such a hot job but the question is why?
A second interesting trend was from the actual fire awareness messages that were stated by the individuals, which ranged from generic messages aimed at people and their safety, to that of property and livestock protection. However, few messages about the benefits or ecological needs for fire. This too was interesting to note and was indicative of the types of messages that are being focussed on.
In many incidences it was apparent that the messages were being aimed too high or too low, often more than one message was presented at an audience but with little logical sequence. Furthermore, fire awareness and the messages spread, did not form part of a greater plan but were often standalone projects, which were not sustained. There was also little to no involvement and or ownership from the communities targeted and members felt like they had been preached at, rather than included.
Upon investigating this issue, I found out the following: Historically institutions have tried to take ownership of the ideas pertaining to fire awareness. However, ideas have been poached and therefore individuals and institutions can become territorial. There are also influences of politics and specific messages being delivered to target audiences.
Although, all is not lost. In order to face these issues, we, as the wildfire community of practice, need to address key areas to provide more successful and far reaching awareness campaigns.
Some suggestions gathered from the data used included: Being more creative with ideas around fire awareness; employing a level of dynamism to the campaigns; being community specific with target audiences, this applies to resources given out and utilised. From both an individualistic and institutional perspective, there needs to be a level of openness, acceptance of new and sometimes challenging ideas – which may deviate from the norm.
A greater involvement from local media would also assist with the spread of these messages. Further, as previous issues with institutions can impair judgement and interfere with working conditions, these differences need to be laid aside, allowing for constructive criticism and new thought patterns to emerge and finally working toward the common goal of fire awareness.