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Sprinkler Media Guide FINAL

This media guide emphasizes the importance of home fire sprinklers in reducing fire-related deaths and property damage, highlighting key messages for effective communication. It provides data on fire incidents, promotes the benefits of sprinklers over smoke alarms, and counters common myths. The guide also suggests promotional strategies and includes sample sound bites for media engagement.

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0 views2 pages

Sprinkler Media Guide FINAL

This media guide emphasizes the importance of home fire sprinklers in reducing fire-related deaths and property damage, highlighting key messages for effective communication. It provides data on fire incidents, promotes the benefits of sprinklers over smoke alarms, and counters common myths. The guide also suggests promotional strategies and includes sample sound bites for media engagement.

Uploaded by

ttrung8866
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Home Fire Sprinklers: A Media Guide

Fire service members and safety advocates can play a major role in communicating home fire
sprinklers to the public. This guide offers advice on how to craft key sprinkler messages to the media.

Key points to highlight

 Identify the home fire problem—and make it local!


o Obtain data from your state fire marshal’s office or other local fire service organization
that can quantify fire deaths, injuries, and dollar amount of property damage over a
series of years. (Aim to highlight fire deaths and property loss over a 10-to-15-year
period.) If your state has a fire sprinkler coalition, that information might be on its
webpage (www.FireSprinklerInitiative.org/Coalitions)
o If local information can’t be obtained, note that more than 350,000 home fires occur
every year in the U.S., killing approximately 3,000 people

 Promote the solution


o Home fire sprinklers can reduce the risk of dying in a fire by 80 percent and can reduce
property loss by 70 percent.

 Express that smoke alarms aren’t enough


o Smoke alarms are necessary devices that alert residents to a fire, but they do nothing to
suppress a fire. Residents may have as little as one to two minutes to safely escape a
burning home, and only fire sprinklers have the ability to contain and possibly extinguish
a fire in less time than it would take the fire department to arrive.

 Counter the myths with facts


o Only the sprinkler closest to the fire—not all sprinklers—will activate.
o Newer homes are not safer homes. Today’s new homes are crafted with “lightweight”
materials that allow fire to spread faster and cause structural failure sooner.
Furthermore, newer homes often contain modern furnishings made of mainly synthetic
materials that can create a greater fuel load.

 Note ease and affordability of installation


o Home fire sprinklers are designed to be simple, and require minimal piping and labor.
o The average cost to install sprinklers in new homes is $1.35 per sprinklered square foot.

Seek opportunities to promote fire sprinklers

 For decades, the fire service has noted the existence or lack of working smoke alarms at fire
scenes. Equally important is mentioning the presence or lack of home fire sprinklers. More and
more safety advocates are now noting which, if any, of the two technologies exist in homes
affected by fire and their impact in saving lives.

 Side-by-side burn demonstrations are effective, highly visual ways of showcasing the
fierceness of home fires and rapid response of sprinklers. Use the free kit created by the Home
Fire Sprinkler Coalition to produce a demo in your community. Don’t forget to invite the media!
Download the free kit at HomeFireSprinkler.org/fire-sprinker-demonstration-kit.

 Seek out and highlight sprinkler successes. While it is common to hear about lives being saved
by smoke alarms, the same cannot be said about home fire sprinklers. Every successful
“sprinkler save” should be promoted to increase public awareness of the importance of fire
sprinklers in homes. When sprinklers activate, alert the media.

Sample sound bites


News outlets will likely use only a small portion of your interview, so make sure your comments are to
the point and compelling. Here are some example sound bites for fires involving fire sprinklers:

 “The fire sprinklers gave the family precious time to escape unharmed.”
 “The fire sprinklers kept the fire small, allowing the family to escape safely and minimizing the
risk to firefighters.”

For home fires without sprinklers (with possible injury or death):


 “This tragedy is another unfortunate reminder that fire knows no bounds and can impact
anyone. We have the power to stop these tragedies from occurring. Fire sprinklers are the key
to eliminating these senseless deaths.”
 “The devastating damage caused by this fire could have been minimized had fire sprinklers
been present.”

For more information on home fire sprinklers, visit NFPA’s Fire Sprinkler Initiative site,
www.FireSprinklerInitiative.org.

This document was inspired by a similar guide created by the California Fire Sprinkler Coalition, “Home Fire Sprinklers: Media Guide for
Firefighters.”

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