Time to brag!

[Daniel Byrne]

There is literally thousands of original, quality, successful program across the nation. One of the problems in fire prevention is a medium in which to share this information, and a lack of resources and time to reinvent the wheel.
Please share/brag about what you do and how you do it.

Show off your stuff and help us prevention folk’s advance!!

[nicoyaspa]

inspection tracking

The best I can do is to offer up my MS Excel spreadsheet for tracking inspections. We are a small, combo department living in the stone age--way behind technologically. I'm writing a grant which would get us a Toughbook computer so that we could enter all violations from each engine company inspection right on the handheld computer, but in the meantime I've made a spreadsheet that I enter each inspection sheet onto, and it tracks every violation. Percentages for each violation, each category, and each commercial occupancy are automatically updated so that at any time you can see where the majority of violations are occurring and address them. Additionally, by entering the date of the reinspection, I am notified within days of the reinspect date, so I can remind the shift captain. It's pretty handy for a department without handheld computers. Let me know if you're interested and I can email it to anyone, with instructions. MG

[Daniel Byrne]

Thanks for sharing

Having been a grant reviewer I was shocked by how far behind technology many departments were in this country, especially when it relates to fire prevention. As discussed in my recent article on FH.Com, we really need to break from our traditional approach to prevention; which for many departments, is funded last, funded least, and the recipient of hand-me-downs. I applaud your efforts which judging by your description clearly comes from passion.

Questions to kind of help viewers who have a similar issue: How big is your department? Who does the inspections on your engine company? Are they certified inspectors? How many businesses do you have in your jurisdiction? Are you mandated to do inspections or is it something your department takes initiative on? With what sounds like time and staffing issues, what are the ramifications with a business is consistently non-compliant?

What you have here is a typical department struggling to do the right thing the best they can and driven on passion…you have allot offer and if you can provide any additional info that would be a big help to all of us. Again thanks for sharing…