SAN DIEGO COUNTY PERSPECTIVE : The Fire Next Time

Fire prevention officials lament that it often takes a tragedy to get people’s attention, and that even then there is only a short time to get a certain safety item out to the public before life’s other concerns crowd out the message.

Last week, in Santa Ana, a Vietnamese father and his son died where they slept, and a 2-week-old daughter escaped injury only to have her mother critically injured--because a hibachi was used to heat the family’s garage apartment.

Unfortunately, this story of a family being overcome by carbon monoxide is a tragedy waiting to happen for many others, whether it’s in a crowded garage that an immigrant family calls home or in a van or boat cabin of someone enjoying a weekend away from it all. It may seem obvious that using a hibachi or small cooking can to heat an enclosed space is dangerous, but the message clearly must reach more people, especially the poor and immigrants like the Nguyen family.

The San Diego Fire Department does offer fire prevention talks for community groups in English and sometimes in Spanish. Unfortunately, there are no resources for hiring interpreters to give talks in other languages. Community groups would have to provide their own.

The department also has fire safety pamphlets and coloring books available in Spanish.

Coloring books in Vietnamese were also published, but boxes of them sat unused; the department finally gave them to police to distribute.

Some smaller departments, such as Encinitas and National City, also have Spanish information and speakers.

In contrast, the fire department in Orange County, which has a larger Southeast Asian population, offers pamphlets in seven languages, and provides interpreters for community talks.

San Diego County fire departments could do more to reach those who speak languages other than Spanish and English.

But for the information to be effective, community groups must also make a point of asking for it.