Firestyle Magazine Issue 8 - Summer 2017 | Page 8

FIRE SERVICE RELATED Highlighting the importance of testing smoke alarms is a message that we promote weekly and effectively through social media under the strap line #TestItTuesday. Social media has become one of our main and most effective tools of communications. Using Twitter and Facebook, we are able to provide a daily stream of the incidents attended by our crews, various work by different departments, key safety messages and promote events such as fire station open days. We have encouraged and empowered our Fires Stations to create Twitter and Facebook pages to promote safety messages and positive interaction with their communities. This has proven hugely beneficial, as a generic safety message can be tailored relevant to a specific area in Swansea for example, or a rural community in Powys. MAWWFRS covers the largest geographical service area in Wales and England, therefore linking the Service’s social media channels to our Fire Stations’ accounts, which command local and enthusiastic followers, allows us to make each safety message relevant to every community within a large geographical area. 08 But social media can also bring its own challenges. On the one side, it allows the Fire and Rescue Service to get a valuable message out quickly, a well thought through message and graphic can have a very positive effect. However, it requires constant monitoring as the public will often respond to posts, which is to be encouraged. This type of interaction is excellent in developing a relationship with the public and therefore requires constant monitoring and a prompt reply to questions to reassure and inform. I have been fortunate that my first 12 months of employment with MAWWFRS have coincided with a television camera crew following every aspect of the Fire and Rescue Service, for a ‘blue lights’ documentary that will be broadcasted on the Welsh language channel S4C in September 2017. I have acted as the link between the Fire and Rescue Service and the television production company and arranged interviews with various members of staff. This has been an ideal way for me to get to know the Service as the film crew have been given an access all areas to the Service; attending incidents with crews, interviewed Control staff, followed Community Safety Teams and filmed specialist operational teams. I have no doubt that the broadcasting of this documentary will open many people’s eyes to the work that the Fire Service does. The most exciting aspect of my work is changing the public’s assumptions that the Fire and Rescue Service are only deployed to incidents of fire. During the last year, I have assisted in promoting the innovative projects that Mid and West Wales Fire and Rescue Service trail, from the harvesting of bracken in an effort to reduce hillside vegetation and preventing wildfires, to monitoring culverts in partnership with local authorities to reduce flooding incidents. Promoting operational responses and services that fewer members of the public are aware of is also very satisfying and interesting, such as the Urban Search and Rescue Team’s use of dogs and unmanned aerial vehicle drones to search for missing persons; the capability of the Fire and Rescue Service to conduct water rescues and Home and Business Fire Safety Checks.