The research reported here follows an earlier project also funded by the New Zealand Fire Service. In that research a qualitative research design to study fire safety knowledge in action was employed. Here, the focus is broadened to consider the New Zealand Fire Service (NZFS) as an organisation that holds accumulated fire safety knowledge, and seeks to target this knowledge towards identified vulnerable groups and effectively communicate its adopted safety strategies.

This research draws from interviews with NZFS employees to identify ways in which the NZFS could optimally reach out to at-risk groups with fire safety promotions and reduce domestic fires. The research focuses on the employment of firefighters as the interface between the NZFS and the public, and on the promotion of domestic fire safety. The analysis works from a translation model of fire safety knowledge. This means that promoting fire safety effectively is not simply a matter of altering the physical environment (e.g. by installing a smoke detector) or distributing “information” about fire safety (e.g. through pamphlet drops). Rather, promoting fire safety is about finding the right mixture of human and material elements, a mixture that itself needs to be flexibly applied across situations.

Improving the value, in terms of safety promotion, of firefighters’ interactions in the wider community could mean ensuring that those firefighters reflect the diversity of the community (in terms of cultural groups) and ensuring that they are well trained and resourced to promote fire safety in ways that are sensitive to the needs of specific at-risk groups. Ultimately, the specificity of doing sensitive, well-targeted community out-reach may mean that the people doing this work are not necessarily firefighters but safety promoters who work alongside firefighters.