Firefighters Educate Students For National Fire Prevention Week
Trending
WHEELING -- As part of the upcoming National Fire Prevention Week, officials with the Wheeling Fire Department have begun their fall session of educating Ohio County grade school students about prevention being the key when it comes to fire safety.
With 2019 National Fire Prevention Week being observed beginning this Sunday through Oct. 12, this year's theme is, "Not Every Hero Wears a Cape," according to Wheeling Fire Department Capt. Deric Jamison.
The goal of Fire Prevention Week is to raise awareness about fire safety and help families better prepare in the event of an emergency. In 1922, the National Fire Protection Association named the second week of October Fire Prevention Week in commemoration of the Great Chicago Fire in 1871.
"Every year we go around and teach fire safety. This year we started with the fire safety house at the schools," Jamison said. "We're teaching kids how to do fire drills. We want to encourage them when they go home to have a fire drill with the entire family, learn their meeting place outside, and make sure they know two exits to get out of the house," he added. Jamison said the department rotates taking their fire safety house to all the grade schools throughout the county, public and private, between the fall and spring seasons. He said the department started visiting Ohio County schools this past week, beginning with Warwood Elementary and Corpus Christi Grade School in Warwood.
"We cover kindergarten, first and second grade with all the elementary schools and we'll see several thousand kids and adult's throughout the year at the safety house," Jamison said. He said they teach the students about general fire safety and how to escape their home if there is a fire.
"We want to teach the kids to, 'stay low and go,' crawl under the smoke, and never go back inside for anything," Jamison said. He said they provide the students with homework, that reminds them to go home and ask their parents to check their smoke detectors. "We always want to teach them to have a meeting place outside and strongly encourage a home fire drill," he added.
In addition, Jamison said families need to remember to make sure all of their smoke detectors are working properly.
"You're twice as likely to survive a fire if you have working smoking detectors in the home," he added.
Jamison said the department will continue to visit schools over the next week or two leading in to National Fire Prevention Week. In addition they plan to have firefighters stationed at various locations around the city during Fire Prevention Week to provide the public with fire safety literature.