Posted by Carol Rea on April 07, 19100 at 12:51:04:
In Reply to: fire department apathy toward JFS's posted by Stephen Kleinatland on March 05, 19100 at 15:29:20:
I've just returned from a conference attended by 2200 firefighters, primarily training officers. I taught a class about the connection between ADD and Juvenile Firesetting... to the one, yes, one student who showed up. Admittedly, there were 14 other presentations at the same time that were highly interesting and it was the last class of the day, but I felt it was still a pretty good indicator of the apathy toward Juvenile Firesetter issues.
At a large gathering that evening, sort of a round table, the firefighters consistently expressed their concerns that the risks of firefighting are increasing and that the answer was funding for more firefighters and training. The word "prevention" was never brought up and "public education" was mentioned only twice, both times to say that we teach the public to stop, drop, and roll, but we really need to teach them how dangerous and difficult our jobs are without the proper funding.
It was disheartening, to say the least, and I felt surrounded by dinosaurs intent on continuing to throw money at putting out fires without seriously trying to prevent them, but I guess we keep plugging away and, perhaps, make a make a conscious effort to teach the public about JFS issues, ourselves.
Carol Rea
Escondido Fire Dept.
: I am working on an article about career fire department apathy toward juvenile firesetters. I would love to hear comments from across the country about this problem. After spending two years setting up a JFS prevention program, my fire department stopped investigating most fires and specifically stopped investigating juvenile-set fires. Obviously, this came from higher-ups, but the apathy across the entire department is amazing. - Stephen.