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Fire Public Education

The mission of the Community Relations Branch is to create a more positive change in attitudes toward fire and life safety behaviors and inform the public of methods to keep fires from occurring.

The proper actions to take should a fire occur can be accomplishedby educating the citizens of Tulsa through various means, such as safety and prevention programs, presentations, meetings, pamphlets, and brochures, and Public Service Announcements. Public fire and safety education will reduce the occurrence of injuries and fatalities as a result of behavior change. The job of promoting community safety is a paramount and monumental task.  No one organization has the resources to accomplish this mission alone, thus making community safety education a collaborative effort between many organizations andagencies that advocate public safety.

The Community Relations Branch covers a wide variety of child safety issues such as water safety, poison prevention, bicycle safety and burn prevention, with an NFPA program called Risk Watch. This is an injury prevention program implemented in preschools, elementary, and middle schools.  It reaches children ages 4-14 years.  This will be the Community Relations Branch 5th year of administration for the Risk Watch program in Tulsa Public Schools, educating over 4,000 children each year. 

Four times per year the Tulsa Fire Department install smoke alarms with a program called Project Life. This program is based on the previous year's statistics of the four highest fire incident square miles.  Fire companies canvas door to door installing smoke alarms, inspecting and replacing batteries. T.U.L.S.A. (Tulsan's Utilizing Lifesaving Smoke Alarms) is another newly developed smoke alarm program that went into effect January 2005 and can be utilized anytime a fire company responds to a residence. The third smoke alarm program called After the Fire, is initiated every time a fire fatality occurs in a residence.

Fire companies canvas door to door 2 square blocks around the fire location to make sure every home has a working smoke alarm. 

Each year in the United States, nearly 2000 children age 14 and under die from motor vehicle related crashes, and more than 325,000 are injured.  In response to this alarming statistic Tulsa Fire Department Public Education Branch assists Tulsa area Safe Kids Coalition with numerous car seat check up events that undoubtedly will save countless lives. Currently, there are 58 car seat certified firefighter technicians on the department. The third Thursday of each month from 2-4 p.m. a car seat checkup event is held at Community Relations office to assist the community with car seats. 

With 115 combined years of experience in the fire service, our office, which is staffed by Tom Hufford, Clarence Jackson, Rick Thompson, Ray Evins and Mike Harris, continue to take the lead on the unintentional injury front. The following is an example of services provided:

• General Fire Safety Classes/Presentations
• Portable  Fire Extinguisher Training
• Smoke alarm Programs
• Child Car Seat Checks
• Emergency Preparedness Plans for Businesses
• Fire Safety Trailer
• Station Tours
• Risk Watch (Injury Prevention Program)
• Fire Truck Showings and Presentations at Schools and Churches
• Public Education Assistance to Fire Company Personnel

This list, while not complete, serves as an example of what our office accomplishes on a daily basis.

Community Relations Statistics 2006