Mapua Fire Brigade takes national online initiative

The Mapua Fire Brigade has launched a new website in a national initiative that will link all volunteer fire brigades across the country.

Mapua brigade volunteer and website designer Paul Tranter says his brief from the Fire Chief was simple.

“He just asked me for a website that would engage the community and allow us to get our messages out there,” he says. “But when I researched around New Zealand I could see that no-one had an effective platform to embed local brigades into their communities.”

The result is FireBuddy.co.nz, which Tranter describes as a state-of-the-art system that enables the Mapua Brigade to connect directly with its village, and offers the same opportunity to all brigades nationally.

“FireBuddy is designed to make information, say about smoke alarms, readily available in an engaging, sometimes fun and never patronising environment,” he says. “We’ve used really good software so it’s easy to use, is responsive and it’s

set up so that each brigade can manage their own area. It also has national and regional news and an e-shop with safety gear and promotional merchandise.”

The aim now is to get fire brigades on board from the Far North to Stewart Island, and to get communities to sign up for their local newsletters.

“This will build up local databases so that if a brigade has something to say to the community they simply send an email from the centralisedsystem.”

How are you going to get other towns on board?

Other features include articles of interest continually updated from across the country, an events calendar, alerts reminding homeowners to check smoke alarms, to clean gutters of autumn leaves, advice on when it’s safe to burn and when fires are banned, critical updates on household issues or appliance recalls, and there are more tools and apps still to be rolled out.

Mapua residents are encouraged to go online to FireBuddy.co.nz and sign up for the newsletter that will keep them, their homes and families safer in this El Nino summer and into the future.
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