CorpComms Magazine

Readers with fire fighter fantasies should look away now because Richard Stokoe, head of communications for the London Fire Brigade, is shattering illusions. It seems that our capital's fire fighters do not dramatically slide down poles on their way to a 'shout', their uniforms straining to contain their rippling muscles and defined six packs.

On the contrary, while the New York Fire Department is obsessed with image, annually producing a calendar of fire fighting hunks and working out in sight of passersby, here in Blighty we're more concerned with continuity and experience. Our fire fighters enjoy a 30 year career and, while physically fit, may not quite be so honed and toned as their Big Apple counterparts.

'We have fire fighters here who joined in 1981, who worked with guys who started in 1951,' says Stokoe. The poles - a relic of times when living quarters were located to the back of the station - are a health and safety issue. Land badly, and an ankle can be broken.

Even that cartoon character Sam is a myth as nobody in the service refers to themself as a fireman. Frankly, this is a disappointing start to the day. But perhaps realising he has gone too far, Stokoe offers: 'But our dogs do wear bootees.'

It's something, I suppose, and so back to business; today is a busy one for Stokoe. The Fire Brigades Union has announced plans for a series of strike ballots with the first walk outs likely next month. Fire fighters last took national action in 2003 when Green Goddesses, which have since been taken out of service, were used as emergency military cover.

Stokoe knows that striking fire fighters is an emotive subject. A series of strikes planned last year barely registered in the public consciousness, until the Daily Mail splashed on the revelation that there would be no official cover on Bonfire Night. 'That goes straight to the political leaders,' he says. 'Ed Miliband and David Cameron immediately condemned the move.' The union ultimately called off the action, but the scaremongering headlines about 'recklessness' and 'putting lives at risk' means the London Fire Brigade needs a two pronged approach to communications.

There's the community safety aspect that needs to be promoted, and an ongoing interaction with political figures.

The reality is that fires are relatively rare. Where most people could name a friend or family member who has been burgled, few have a close relationship with a victim of fire. The London Fire Brigade's approach is to educate those most at risk of fires on how to prevent them.

Bonfire Night and Diwali, the religious festival of lights, fell on the same day last year, so parties were likely on the weekend before and afterwards. The London Fire Brigade took adverts out in the Evening Standard and the Metro containing nine specific pieces of advice for fire safe celebrations. It also hired advans to deliver the message to London's traditional hot spots - Newham, Tower Hamlets, Greenwich and Southwark. As a result of its proactive approach, the incidence of fires during the Bonfire Night season fell between 50 per cent and 60 per cent.

Identifying those at risk

Drawing on Experian's Public Sector Mosaic segmentation data from the past five years, Stokoe and his team have also created a fire map and identified three sections of the population most at risk. The first group Stokoe describes as the 'Dot Cottons, who are old, poor and like a drink, who go to bed with their fourth gin and tonic and a cigarette and set fire to their blankets.'

These 'Dot Cottons' account for more than half of all fire-related deaths in the capital, and are one of the main reasons why the London Fire Brigade campaigned for 'fire safer standard' cigarettes which have ultra thin bands at intervals down their length: these bands cause the cigarette to extinguish if it is not being puffed by the smoker. This has now been agreed by the European Commission, and is expected to come in force from next month. London Fire Brigade's successful campaign to make furnishings flame retardant now saves around 200 lives a year.

The second 'at risk' group are benefit claimants living in a tower block, who also like to smoke and drink, but who do not read newspapers. Adverts or articles will not make a difference. 'The best way to reach both these groups is to visit them at home, offer to install smoke alarms and explain the risks,' he says. Community safety advice is now an important part of a fire fighter's working week.

But the final 'at risk' group is somewhat surprising. Young, educated professionals accounted for more than one in four of London's 18,000 fires over the last three years. 'I call them Yepples,' says Stokoe. 'They live in smart rented flats and regularly go out. They might light a candle and then forget about it after a few drinks. Or they might come home after a night out and put the Pot Noodle with a spoon still in it in the microwave.'

Yepples would not respond well to the door-to-door approach. 'They would think we were Jehovah's Witnesses,' he adds. 'They read newspapers on the web and are involved in social networking. With this group it is far more about getting them to change their behaviour. We need first to identify them and then to get to influence them.'

It seems that Yepples respond well to six factors - sex, humour, fear, comedy, intrigue and celebrity. Open days, with the chance to see some fake blood and gore, or interactive demonstrations are the sorts of thing that work well.

While information on fire prevention is on London Fire Brigade's Facebook page, Stokoe believes that social media is not the route to communicate with Yepples. 'I don't think the public sector has quite got it when it comes to social media,' he adds. Twitter should not, he argues, be viewed as the main solution to budget cuts. 'People really need to think what they want to say, and what their audience is,' says Stokoe. 'But they also attribute far too much importance to one channel. Social media is currently sexy.'

London Fire Brigade was prompted into launching a Twitter feed after a Burger King in Liverpool Street Station caught fire last year. 'It happened on a Friday at about 10pm and 2,000 people had to be evacuated from the station,' says Stokoe. 'We started getting calls from the media saying they had heard that it was a bomb.'

Commuters were tweeting unfounded rumours, and the Brigade had no immediate channel to correct them. 'We view Twitter rather like we're gossiping with neighbours over the garden fence,' says Stokoe. 'We tweeted when the Kings of Leon's tour bus went on fire at the O2 and when Annie Lennox and Liza Minnelli were both evacuated from Hyde Park Hotel. We can do a lot more with our target group if we give them good gossipy information.'

The handle @LondonFire now has almost 11,000 followers, including major news channels such as Sky and BBC. It provides a regular update on incidents, with their up-to-date status, but also often refers followers back to advice and news on its website. The Twitter feed also came into its own during the recent London rioting. But for a profession even celebrated at Legoland, criticism of the London Fire Brigade over that period must have been surprising. For four nights, its control staff handled one call every 48 seconds - peaking at one every 11 seconds in the hour before midnight on 8 August - while fire fighters attended at least 807 fires.

'People don't realise but it took a week to put the fire out [at the Sony depot in Enfield],' says Stokoe. Fire fighters were criticised by some members of the public for letting the Allied Carpet building in Tottenham burn down, and holding back at other times. 'That building was gone by the time we had got there,' he adds. 'Our priority then was to stop the fire spreading to other houses.'

Fires in bins were left unattended, while police cars were left to burn after youths threatened to make fire engines targets. 'There was no point in squaring up against them,' says Stokoe. Fire fighters never deliberately put themselves in positions where the other services might be forced to intervene on their behalf. They're there to serve, not be served.

Fantasies restored. Phew.

share me: del.icio.us | digg | reddit | Tweet