As I work for the fire department, over the last couple of weeks we haved been going into the grade schools in order to teach young kids about fire safety...

Fire safety week has been going since the Great Chicago Fire of 1871 when hundreds of people died and almost one hundred thousand were homeless. Firefighters of the time decided to get together and teach the general public how to be safe around fire.

We went into the school and part of what we did is to help kids design a fire safety plan for their own homes, as well as having a town wide fire drill where they could practice the drill with their parents.

We had a fire last year in which a five year old accidently started a fire when he was playing with a lighter in the middle of the night; he ended up hiding in the closet, which is where we found his body when we got on scene. The best guess is that he was afraid of getting into trouble for starting the fire; it is far too common.

The fire safety plans that the kids do get turned into the Fire Chief. He selects the best plans from each grade and they "win" a tour of the fire station, get to spray water from a fire hose and get to ride to school in the fire engine...after meeting with "Sparky the Fire Dog".

Here are the kids with Sparky:
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I helped the kids spray some water from the firehose off of the engine; they got a real kick out of it:

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The little girls that won found out that there were indeed "girl firefighters", and were so exited to find out...I heard more than a couple "I told you so's" from the girls aimed at the boys when they found out...

It has been a great week, I love getting to help kids...

thats sad...

I hoped they had fun...I remeber those...we had a "trailer" that shpwed all the household hazards...it was fun.

did the fire in yellowstone kill anyone?

I have great respect for people who put their lives on the line to save other people.
Great work Fluffybunny!

[/quote]We had a fire last year in which a five year old accidently started a fire when he was playing with a lighter in the middle of the night; he ended up hiding in the closet, which is where we found his body when we got on scene. The best guess is that he was afraid of getting into trouble for starting the fire; it is far too common.[quote]

That is sad. I hope the children were told of this, stories like that touch the hearts of everyone. But a good lesson for the children to learn.

wow, Fluffy! I bet the children had a great time!

They do the same thing here in Canada, where kids go visit fire stations and get to "try out" some of the gear.

Here's a picture of my nephew, trying out the fire hose - obviously, it's not on full blast or the poor tyke wouldn't have been able to hang on to it.. lol His picture was in the newspaper at the time; was he ever proud to have had his *15 mins of fame*

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