The death toll on children taken by fire this winter season seems unusually heavy, officials at the U.S. Fire Administration say, although there are no firm statistics yet.  And like most fire service professionals who’ve witnessed the brutal reality of child deaths and serious injuries in fires, they’re taking it hard.

“It’s been devastating,” says Charlie Dickinson, deputy U.S. fire administrator. The rage in his voice intensifies as he reads a list of recent multiple fatality fires from his office at the USFA in Emmitsburg, Md.

“Dec. 22, five children died in an apartment fire in Texas;
“Dec. 23, four children in Canton, Ohio;
“Dec. 29, a teenage girl died in Fairfax County, Virginia;.
“Dec. 30, three people in New York, including two children;
“Dec. 30, three people in Virginia, including a teenage girl.”

And the casualties continue. On Monday, an 11-year-old, a 13-year-old and a grandmother died in a house fire in Germantown, New York. Dickinson and U.S. Fire Administrator Dave Paulison have begun to feel it’s time to do something more than just feel frustrated and sad. “As a society, how can we accept this?” wonders Dickinson. “Where’s the outrage by the fire service that we continue to lose children like this?”

Paulison and Dickinson are issuing a call to arms to the nation’s fire service leaders. Serious fires should be followed with serious messages from fire chiefs, they say. “These deaths mean we must rededicate ourselves to educating the public about this serious – and largely preventable – scourge in our communities,” said Paulison, in an editorial sent to FIRE CHIEF today.

Knowing that fire chiefs may feel a bit like Chicken Little as they try to get fire prevention and safety messages through a jaded media, Paulison sought advice from public affairs experts at the USFA and FEMA on how fire chiefs can make Fire Prevention Week come early this year. “What is the best way for you – the fire chiefs of this nation – to reach your community with fire safety messages? I asked public affairs professionals in FEMA and the U.S. Fire Administration to think about that question and provide you with some strategic advice on reaching out to the media as a partner in fire education,” said Paulison.

See “After a Serious Fire: Maximize Media Attention to Promote Safety” by R. David Paulison.

It would be easy for many fire chiefs to feel discouraged as they witness the human toll taken by fires this winter season, but Paulison and Dickinson implore fire chiefs and fire prevention officials to beat their drums only louder. Dickinson recalls feeling that sense of hopelessness himself when he was a fire chief in Pittsburgh and several children died in a fire under his watch. He used that occasion to engage the media; he told reporters he felt a personal sense of failure that his department’s prevention efforts hadn’t reached that family before the tragedy. If only that family had gotten the message of how important it is to change the batteries in their smoke alarm; if only they had learned how important it is not to leave children alone in a fire; not to leave candles out in the open and of the importance of a family escape plan; these simple things might have saved their lives.

 “I got the news media’s attention and we went fourteen months without losing a child. That was the greatest fourteen months we ever had,” recalled Dickinson.

But you have to do your homework with the press, he said. “You can’t say, ‘No comment’ and stand across the street. They’re not going to come and help you. You’ve got to engage these folks, and you’ve got to make them a part of your team. And sometimes you have to take them inside the fire scene and show them ugly things, because you need them to feel the passion that you have. You need them to feel your hopelessness when you look at these kids and see how god awful it is.”

Let these fatal fires serve as a catalyst to renew your commitment to improving fire safety and prevention in your community, said Paulison. “As fire professionals, we take each fatal fire personally. It seems as if we have failed our community in some way. A fatal fire, though, might be just the wake-up call your community needs…. You are key to this. You can help turn the tragedy of fire deaths to a triumph of a safer community.”