A Good Ideal A program to let Firefighters know where Children are sleeping that ended up a Bad Ideal Just again proving fire Service is its own worse enemy

Back in late 70s early 80s  some one in the Fire Community came up with a great ideal .

To help firefighters locate children when a home catches fire why don't we have home owners put a sticker on their child's bedroom window thereby telling us where the child is located.  Like this old faded  Child Finder one in a bedroom window in Penn Hills Pa.

At First it seemed like a good idea  . The stickers gave children a safer feeling firefighters would find them
which was fantastic and during a fire firefighters knew which windows to go to first to rescue the children

But like all good ideas problems slowly developed.

When home owners moved they did not remove stickers and children may no longer be in bedroom

The other issue children grew up and moved away but stickers where still on windows.
and like the home above its sat empty now for almost a decade 

Also the problem was with children knowing the sticker told them where Firefighters could find them and gave them ease knowing they would be safe if a fire broke out brought much discern  when a fire did break out fireman are not there and children panicked.
So thou the program was launched and seen as a good thing the consequences proved anything but.

When launching a new safety program Fire Service really needs to think thru all ramifications and then ask should we proceed with it. Too many times they dont and it comes back to bite them.