Albany Fire Department’s Be Fire Safe Campaign

ALBANY, Ga. – It’s never a bad thing to be too prepared. And, that’s why the Albany Fire Department (AFD) is taking the initiative to help people be ready in the event of an emergency through their Be Fire Safe Campaign.

AFD Fire Chief, Cedric Scott says the campaign will focus on several topics to help prepare for a worst-case scenario.

As he tells us about some of the basics they’ll be discussing in town-hall style meetings each of the coming weekends.

“What it does is, it creates an awareness of the dangers of fire. To prevent us from being careless. Like not leaving cooking unattended. It talks about grill safety and being safe around grills. Having a working smoke alarm, having a fire escape plan…” said Chief Cedric Scott, Albany Fire Dept.

But… it goes just beyond holding a public forum to help people form a plan…

With the fire department planning to go door-to-door.

“…One that we’re excited about as well is, we’re going to visit 3,000 homes in 30 days. And, so, we’re going to go out and canvas our community, and go door-to-door; with the goal of 3,000 homes in 30 days. We will have smoke alarms with us to install if you need one,” said Chief Scott.

Beyond that, Chief Scott wants to use these public forums to help set up their community Firewatch program.

“The community Firewatch program, what we’re hoping to do is partner with existing community groups. Such as neighborhood watch groups, community associations, neighborhood associations. We’re hoping to partner with them to create community Firewatchers within those programs,” said Chief Scott.

But more than anything, the Albany Fire Department wants to use this upcoming campaign to make sure people have plans in place in case of a disaster.

“We should make all of these plans before a disaster happens. ‘do I have a list of medications?’ ‘have I taken pictures of all of my belongings in my home, so that if it were destroyed, I would have a record of it in my home?” said Chief Scott.

The first of these town hall meetings takes place this coming Saturday, but Chief Scott is hoping more people throughout the community will take the time to be a little more prepared in the event of an emergency.

For a list of dates and locations for the campaign, you can view the attached flyer.

Brian Roche reporting.

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