Get Involved
What Fire Corps Can Do
Fire Corps teams can play an important role in assisting their community in preparing for emergencies. The information below offers ideas for how Fire Corps teams can better serve their local citizens and help them prepare for natural or manmade disasters.
- Join together with your local CERT team. Have your Fire Corps members complete the 20-hour CERT training to better educate themselves in the event of a natural disaster, and have the CERT members become a part of your local Fire Corps. Together, you will be able to work together on a more frequent basis before an emergency happens. Learn more from the Fire Corps guide CERT and Fire Corps: Working Together to Build Stronger Communities.
- Start a fundraiser to help raise funds for weather radios to be placed in daycare centers, senior facilities, and schools
- Start a canteen unit for the fire department members to assist them during an emergency.
- Install hearing-impaired smoke alarms where needed.
- Work with your department and other emergency organizations within the community to create an evacuation plan for those with disabilities.
- Create and distribute disaster supply kits.
Additional Resources
For more information on National Preparedness Month, visit the Ready campaign. Additional resources you can use to help get your community prepared and informed include the following.
Federal Emergency Management Agency
This comprehensive guide walks the reader through a step-by-step approach to getting informed about local emergency plans, how to identify hazards that effect their local area, and how to develop and maintain an emergency communications plan and disaster supply kit. Other topics covered include evacuation, emergency public shelters, animals in disaster, and information specific to people with disabilities. Are You Ready? also provides in-depth information on specific hazards including what to do before, during, and after a hazard.
Make a Plan for Your Pet Before Disaster Strikes
American Red Cross
American Red Cross
Our pets enrich our lives in more ways than we can count. In turn, they depend on us for their safety and well-being. Here's how you can be prepared to protect your pets when disaster strikes. Visit www.redcross.org for more information on becoming prepared.
Home Safety Council
The Home Safety Council (HSC) advises families to have both a “Ready-to-Stay” and a “Ready-to-Go” kit to ensure they are prepared for emergencies that require sheltering in place as well as for events that require evacuation. Visit www.homesafetycouncil.org for more information.
Fire Corps and the HSC have also partnered to develop a Fire Safety Module that can be used to implement a comprehensive fire and life safety public education program at the local level. Based on the HSC’s All-Ways Fire Safe at Home program, this module is comprised of four fire safety education programs that Fire Corps teams can use to promote fire and life safety to community members in different stages of life, including preschool, elementary school, middle school, and older adult. To order, fill out the Fire Corps Resource Request form and return to Fire Corps at info@firecorps.org email or fax to 202-887-5291.
