Peter Matthews talks with Daniel Byrne, Laura Konor and Ben Shearer about new approaches to Community Risk Reduction (CRR) and fire prevention in 2024, and what has changed with public outreach since COVID-19. Byrne is an assistant chief with the Burton, SC, Fire District, Kondor is fire safety coordinator for the North Charleston, SC, Fire Department and Shearer is community risk reduction specialist with the Pasco, WA, Fire Department. 

They discuss how COVID-19 impacted the fire service’s reach in-person reach, whether through in-school visits, open houses, or community events and how that created a shift to digital learning. Since then, some departments have had more requests than ever from the community, forcing them to select the groups they meet with to talk about life safety. 

The group shares advice for Fire Prevention Week success and year-round outreach concept that help fire departments connect with their communities at multiple levels. The three talk about how they have partnered with organizations and used fire department data to target education to certain groups, and close out the show with CRR wins and losses from their views. 

Ben Shearer

Laura Kondor

Daniel Byrne

Resources 

Fire Prevention Week