Each year our Department visits the Suffolk County Fire Academy to attend a lecture and do hands on work in the techniques needed to battle fires and incidents involving flammable gas and liquids.
I always enjoy this drill both as a firefighter and a PIO. Quite frankly the hands on portion, as any of you who has taken this kind of training know is quite spectacular as LP gas creates a pretty intense fireball.
As a PIO I look forward to the drill because I get some pretty neat pictures when I am not involved in an evolution and I get plenty of food for thought on how I can let the public know about flammable gas safety.
One of the facts that the public always finds interesting is that natural gas has no odor. The actual smell of the gas is created by a substance called mercaptan that creates the rotten egg odor to warn of potential danger.
Prior to substances like mercaptan natural gas explosions came without warning.
If I had an unlimited public information budget I would try to mirror the creative natural gas safety promotion undertaken by Puget Sound Energy.
The Washington State energy giant, much like stores used to do when they put a perfume sample in with a bill or direct mail piece, infused invoice contents with a scratch off that mirrors the odor of rotten eggs.
I spoke to a buddy in Washington who told me about the mailing and said that the odor after the scratch off was effective but not sickening to smell.
Kudos to Puget Sound Energy for this effect community outreach and safety program.
Here is a copy of the pamphlet
Also on The Fire PIO…
- My Vacation – Being a Line Officer – September 23, 2010
- The Fire Pio’s List of Awareness Months and Weeks – August 16, 2010
- How do I Address a Judge? – November 18, 2010
- PIO Product Review – MediaSync – September 16, 2010
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