Fire Prevention Education
Hamilton Volunteer Fire Department has within its organization a group of firemen who volunteer for additional responsibilities. These firemen typically have young children in the local schools, or simply enjoy interacting and teaching children. This additional responsibility is one that we all take very seriously. As we all look at it, if we can save a child from harm, or minimize their exposure, we have accomplished a goal that is every fireman’s dream – protecting a child from harm.
The chairman of the Fire Safety Program is Tom Pitzinger. The other firemen, along with Sparky “the fire dog” all enjoy teaching the children and seeing their smiling faces.
The Fire safety Program dates of instruction coincide with the National Fire Prevention Week which is the second week in October each year. We make every attempt to conduct the fire safety training around the same time frame.
The program consists of the volunteer firemen going to the local schools: Washington and Daly Elementary, Grantsdale, and Headstart to conduct the training. We start with the pre-kindergarten grades through the 3rd grade averaging over 800 children participating in the instruction each year.
When we visit each school, we always bring along our helper, Sparky, who does quite a bit of the instruction. Sparky is a remote controlled miniature fire engine. It was purchased by the fire department from local donations to the fire department from our residents. Sparky is an excellent tool used to keep the children entertained. We also use Sparky to instruct the children to move to the side of the road, get off their bikes and onto the side walk, and wave to the fire trucks when they drive by – “because Sparky loves to see children waving to him”. This simple task accomplishes two important items: first, it gets our children out of the roadway and second, while they are waving to the fire engines, it is easier to see them too.
The program has several key topics all relating to fire safety. The most talked about (Sparky also sings a song about it) is smoke detectors. We challenge the children to go home and test all the smoke detectors in the house. Smoke detectors are the largest contributing factor to saving lives in household fires because they provide early detection of a fire. Early detection, coupled with a practiced fire escape plan, and staying low under the smoke are key elements to fire safety. All of these items, and my favorite – “stop, drop, and roll” are discussed during the 50 minute talk we have with your children.
When the program is finished at each school, the fire department passes out to all the children that participated, books explaining fire safety, pencils, crayons, etc. All these items are paid by donations to the Hamilton Volunteer Fire Department. We appreciate the contributions and enjoy the teaching opportunities to all children.
