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Commissioner Grant - Proclamation - To Proclaim the Week of October 8-14, 2017 as Fire Prevention Week and Adopt the Theme: Every Second Counts - Plan 2 Ways Out!
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STAFF CONTACT
Eric Hendrix - Fire Marshal - 704 866-3231
BACKGROUND
National Fire Prevention Week is observed across the United States each year during the first full week (Sunday thru Saturday) that contains the date of October 9th. It commemorates the Great Chicago Fire, a conflagration that burned from Sunday, October 8, to early Tuesday, October 10, 1871. The fire killed up to 300 people, destroyed roughly 3.3 square miles of Chicago, IL and left more than 100,000 residents homeless. In the United States, the first Presidential proclamation of Fire Prevention Week was made in 1925 by President Calvin Coolidge. The National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) continues to be the international sponsor of the week. On the 40th anniversary (1911) of the Great Chicago Fire, the Fire Marshals Association of North America; the oldest membership section of the NFPA, sponsored the first National Fire Prevention Day, deciding to observe the anniversary as a way to keep the public informed about the importance of fire prevention. The non-profit NFPA, which has officially sponsored Fire Prevention Week since its inception, selects the annual theme for Fire Prevention Week (2017 = Every Second Counts - Plan 2 Ways Out). When President Calvin Coolidge proclaimed the first National Fire Prevention Week on October 4-10, 1925, he noted that in the previous year some 15,000 lives were lost to fire in the United States. Calling the loss "startling", Coolidge's proclamation stated: "This waste results from the conditions which justify a sense of shame and horror; for the greater part of it could and ought to be prevented... It is highly desirable that every effort be made to reform the conditions which have made possible so vast a destruction of the national wealth". SOURCE: WIKIPEDIA.ORG
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