There's joy in taking delivery of a new piece of fire apparatus or doing a wet-down of a new fire station, but not every improvement requires a quarter of a million dollars or more of investment.

Many improvements rest on communication between a fire department and the community and its leaders. Some significant progress in meeting a fire department's communications goals can be done for a few quarters or even with just a pair of Quarter Pounders with cheese.

Ride a media wave

This year, like every year, there will be fires that catch the attention of national media outlets. Use someone else's distant disaster to draw attention to local concerns. Media outlets often are interested in local angles to national stories. When those fires occur, be ready to hit your local media with information. Contact them and reference the other community's disaster, briefly explain that your community faces a similar problem, and give a few simple steps residents can take to reduce risk in your area.

For example, when a wildland-urban interface fire in another state hits the national press, be ready to give your local wildland-urban interface information. An easy and inexpensive way is to send a letter to the editor of your local newspaper; to reach multiple news outlets you can alter the letter format and turn it into a press release. A short letter could read:

“Although the recent fire in (location of disaster) may seem distant, our community faces the same problem of forests and homes burning together to create tragic results. Here in (your town's name), we live in a forest where fires are a natural part of the landscape.

“Because of this, we urge homeowners to create an area around their homes that will not burn. By clearing an area at least 30 feet away from your house of brush, firewood and other flammable materials, you start to create a ‘defensible space.’ This it will provide firefighters with a way of separating a forest fire from your home. Creating defensible space is something to do long before there's a forest fire in our area. So help us prevent a (location of recent disaster) situation from happening here by building defensible space.

“For more information about how you can reduce wildland-urban interface fire risk, call us at (department's non-emergency phone number).”

If you tell people to contact you for information, be prepared to promptly meet public requests for it. Lack of follow-through hurts a department's credibility. Even though it's a different skill set, many will link your ability to deliver a brochure on fire prevention to your ability to show up and put out a fire.

If you don't have the resources to give out fire prevention information, you might be able to include the phone number of a land agency, such as a local state or national forest service office. In so doing, you might tap into the talents and brochures of a public information officer who would be delighted in getting information out to people with an interest in the topic you write about in your letter.

Before sending out anything to the press, you should call anyone outside your department whom you mention as a contact for more information as a matter of courtesy. Explain your intentions and ask if you can include their phone numbers in your letter. Also ask if they would co-sign the letter. Doing so is a win-win for all involved parties and it helps your department build an alliance with an agency that has responsibilities and concerns similar to your own.

Get on the evening news

You can follow a similar format with a television news outlet, though it will probably take more time than sending a letter to the editor. Contact the news outlet, reference the other community's disaster, briefly explain that your community faces a similar problem, and tell how your department wants to give local residents a few simple steps they can take to prevent a similar disaster from occurring in your community.

For example, let's say that the national story is about a family of four who died in a house fire where there was an out-of-service smoke detector. Call your TV station and ask if they will do a segment where one of your engine companies visits a home and shows a family how to check and service a smoke detector. Explain that for smoke detectors to save lives they need to be properly tested and functioning. If your department has a smoke-detector installation program, tell the reporter that you would like to feature that as well.

Again, the key idea is to link a national media event with a local problem while offering a focused suggestion for what you want the public to do. Be realistic about the problem, but avoid overstating the danger. You don't want to panic people; you want them to take rational steps to reduce risk. Remember that to be effective and build the link between the distant disaster and the local risk, you have to act promptly. That means you contact your local media outlet within 24 hours of their report of the national story.

Mind your manners

Sometimes the message a fire department needs to send only has to reach a handful of people. That critical handful often includes a community's elected and appointed officials, and the message they need to hear is sometimes no more complicated than “thank you.”

Fire chiefs and other fire service leaders often fall into a hazardous mindset of entitlement. Some of us are too quick to say or imply, “Obviously we should receive a half million dollars to purchase a new aerial. After all, we save babies from burning buildings”; or “Our purchase order document should be processed before anything else. If that ambulance's transmission is not fixed right away, don't blame me if we can't get your grandmother to the hospital.”

We might be right, but we should not be self-righteous. A department's needs often are legitimate, but so are the needs of a community's battered women's shelter and the business office's need to make payroll. Local elected and appointed officials have conflicting needs to address. They can't, nor should they, address every fire department desire. When one is addressed, however, we should be quick to deliver a sincere thank you.

A written thank-you letter doesn't need to be long. It just needs to be truthful and free of sarcasm:

“Dear Council Chair Martinez: Even though the fire department asked for a 6% operations budget increase, I still want to thank you for voting for the 3H% increase. I know that some city agencies faced budget cuts this year and your budget decisions were difficult. I appreciate you keeping the fire department as a funding priority.

“Thanks again, Chief Leopold.”

After a contentious public meeting, I sent a similar thank-you letter to a local elected official. Some time later, he thanked me for the letter. He told me he hears a lot from people before votes, but rarely receives a thank you afterward. I know that it garnered a lot of goodwill. After that conversation, I set the goal of writing at least one thank-you letter a month to someone who had helped the fire department. I didn't always meet my goal, but it helped me to keep my eyes open to people who deserved our thanks.

Thank-you letters are quick, easy and inexpensive. A little bit more complicated, but still quite effective, is taking someone to lunch. Using the broken ambulance transmission story from above, take the office worker who rapidly processed the purchase order document to lunch. While you're at it, also take the mechanic who fixed it.

The point is, no fire department succeeds with just the folks who wear bunker gear. A fire department's ability to deliver prompt, quality emergency service is directly linked to many people who have never even sat in a fire truck. Make it a regular point to find them and thank them. You want them to know that your fire department appreciates what they do to keep you on the streets and available to the public you serve.

Improvements in a fire department's apparatus, stations, water supply and communication systems are critical to its success. In truth though, real advancement is built on the talents and relationships of a department's members. Even passing a bond issue to make capital improvements depends on a community and its leaders' trust and support.

That trust and support is built on the department's ability to creatively communicate with those very same people. The amazing thing is that communication sometimes costs only the price of a stamp or a super-meal-deal at the local fast-food place.

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Daniel Shaw is a 17-year member of the Placitas (N.M.) Volunteer Fire Brigade, where he served for five years as chief. He holds an associate's degree in fire science technology, a bachelor's degree in environmental education, and a master's degree in science education, Shaw is a classroom science teacher at the Bosque School in Albuquerque and adjunct faculty at the University of New Mexico, and he has received state and national awards for his teaching and curriculum development.