White Plains Fire Bureau Honored with NYSAFC Pub Ed Award

NYSAFC recently honored the White Plains Fire Bureau as the 2011 recipient of the James W. Wright Public Education Award. This esteemed award is presented annually to recognize an individual emergency services responder or organization for outstanding effort in delivering a unique and innovative program to teach the public about fire/injury prevention and safety in New York state. The White Plains Fire Bureau was honored for its creative and comprehensive "High Rise Safety and Evacuation Program." The goal of the program is to protect the citizens of White Plains that live and work in the city’s more than 100 high rise residential and commercial structures.

The first component of the program is a seven-minute residential high rise life safety video that concisely educates citizens about their role in their building’s fire safety and evacuation plan. It also clearly shows the actions that residents should take in the event of a fire. The program also includes an 11-minute commercial high rise fire safety and evacuation video, which is being distributed to businesses located in the city’s high rise buildings so this information can be shared with employees.

The bureau was chosen for this award in recognition of the quality of its program, which is appropriate for audiences of all ages, its use of new media to deliver the fire safety message, and its efforts to develop a cost effective program for the community offset by grant funding.

NYSAFC President Alfonso Varlaro presented the award to Chief Richard Lyman and the White Plains Fire Bureau during the opening ceremony of the 38th Annual Public Fire Safety Educators’ Conference on April 30, 2011, at the New York State Academy of Fire Science in Montour Falls, N.Y. Lyman was joined in accepting the award by Richard Nagle, retired director of the Academy of Fire Science, who produced the award winning life safety program. Members of the NYSAFC board of directors and Public Education Committee, who selected White Plains as this year’s award recipient, were also on hand for the presentation.

"The number of people that this program reaches, through videos broadcast online, on cable television, and viewed on DVD, is so impressive. It will make a great impact on the safety of those living and working in high rise structures throughout this community and beyond," said NYSAFC President Al Varlaro.

The White Plains Fire Bureau’s program was showcased during the conference before public fire safety educators from across New York state and from as far away as Maine and Canada. NYSAFC’s goal in bestowing the award and sharing it at this yearly event is to recognize the recipient for their exceptional endeavor and to share fresh ideas in fire/life safety education with members of other fire departments, which they can then implement into their own public education programs in other regions.

The Public Education Award was first presented by NYSAFC in 1995. In 2010, it was named in memory of James W. Wright, a longtime member of the association’s Public Education Committee and champion of fire/injury prevention in the Empire State.

Pictured (L to R): Richard Nagle, Alfonso Varlaro, and Richard Lyman.