CRR
Vision 20/20, a project funded by an AFG Fire Prevention and Safety Grant to the Institution of Fire Engineers, has been working on implementing Community Risk Reduction (CRR) programs to demonstrate their application in the United States. Modeled on the highly successful programs used in the United Kingdom and Australia, the concepts of CRR have been implemented in a number of communities, helping them to implement home fire safety visits by front line fire fighters. These go beyond the simple smoke alarm installation (which is still a key part) and get them involved in doing focused fire safety education programs during these visits. We have worked with a number of communities, including
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Cleveland
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Philadelphia
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Dallas
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Tucson
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Alexandria, VA
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Washington, DC,
among others. It is an excellent way to get front-line fire fighters involved in working directly in the community, helping promote a safer environment, increasing the productivity of the fire department and helping create a strong and positive relationship with the community, especially when budgets are under close scrutiny. The focus of CRR is on high-risk homes, the very places where a large percentage of fires, deaths and injuries occur and is a coordinated effort to address this problem through outreach in the form of home fire safety visits by fire fighters, either alone or in partnership with social service agencies in the community.
As an off-shoot, we have developed a Quick Response Team (QRT) that works with communities in the aftermath of a significant incident, during the teachable moment, when the eyes of the community are turned towards the fire department and asking how to avoid similar tragedies. The QRT concept is about both the short term (helping to facilitate home fire safety visits and smoke alarm installs) and the long term (integrating CRR into the daily, front line operations, code changes, etc.). It is also all about building partnerships and getting other organizations involved, such as the schools, social services agencies and others who can play a part in the outreach efforts. These partnerships are absolutely critical to the success of the programs.
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