As part of the implementation of the Home Fire Safety Checks Program, the Community Engagement Unit of Fire & Rescue NSW (FRNSW) set out to build a snapshot of the current attitudes of operational staff toward prevention activities. For the purposes of this research project, FRNSW operational staff were grouped into full-time firefighters below Superintendent rank, and part-time (retained) firefighters.

This research project used focus groups to pre-test and refine a survey that resulted in 367 responses.

This paper will outline the methodology and the findings of that survey and discuss the steps taken to mitigate the issues identified by the survey. The stand out findings from the survey were that 88% of operational staff believe that they are responsible for conducting prevention activities, that 60% wanted further training in prevention, that 47% wanted proof that prevention activities were effective and that the prevention programs were targeting the correct groups (44%).

This paper will discuss how each of those identified concerns is currently being addressed by the introduction of the Home Fire Safety Checks Program. This project includes new E-Learning packages, increased external funding for regional and indigenous home fire prevention, better targeting of ‘at risk’ groups using Mosaic population profiling, and better evaluation post-prevention activities by engaging with experts from the University of Western Sydney.

This research was undertaken as part of a Masters Degree in Public Administration at the Graduate School of Government, University of Sydney.