CAL FIRE BDU teaches fire safety at ABC7

For three days last week, studio B at the ABC7 News Studios in Glendale was turned over to CAL FIRE BDU. What was going on? Fire safety was going on. Assistant Chief Doug Lannon and Information Officer Bill Peters were teaching the news staff how to be safe not only while covering wildland fires, but how to stay safe in the field in general. Lannon and Peters taught the same four hour class twice a day for three days. One hundred and thirteen members of the ABC7 news staff, reporters, assignment editors, producers, and videographers attended.
The class was developed in 2002 by Lannon and Peters as a way to deliver fire safety training to the news media on a large scale. The class is designed to go into the news operations and fit it to their needs in order to teach and inform the maximum number of personnel possible. The class includes training on news media and the law regarding 409.5 of the California Penal Code (the media access to disasters law), personal protective equipment, fire behavior, fire ground injuries, and fire ground safety including vehicle operations off road.

Since 2002, Lannon and Peters have taught this class or the 90-minute refresher class to every major news outlet in the Los Angeles television market. This program was designed to be a turn-key presentation and has been shared with other CAL FIRE Units throughout the state.