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FIRE PREVENTION: IS IT JUST A ONE TIME EVENT IN A YEAR?
If you look out your window what do you see? You see a world full of people, places and schools that we help teach generations of safety and knowledge of what’s right, what’s wrong and what’s safe and what’s not to. But what about those few who say that fire prevention is only one time a year. If you sit for a minute and ask your self this one question. Is fire prevention just one time a year? Well the answer to that is as simple answer as two + two.
You see fire prevention is every day and why is that? Well that’s simple if you look out the same window you can see that local fire departments don’t only take time out for a week or two in one month to talk about fire prevention. But when it comes down to fire safety there is nothing like having the people who deal with it 24-7 both paid and volunteer fire departments come out and interact in the communities all year round where they protect by paraded down your main streets on holidays or holding open houses at the fire stations or even coming out to events and playing some football with the kids. Seen that makes some people remember about the forgotten days of calling the fire department to get the family cat out of the tree across the street or even where they would come out and play stick ball with the kids in the neighborhood or where they would come and fill you kids pool with water.
When it comes down to it I feel we all could use a good days work of fire prevention because there is now feeling like it when you see a child’s eyes light up when they see a fireman or firewoman come and interact with them. Where if its playing a sport with them or build a snowman with them at a winter festival or even if they just stop by there daycare to say hi. For those fire departments who are examples of this. They are changing the way fire prevention is being giving to there communities. They show that for that fire prevention is not just something you can do one or two weeks in one month of the year. But something you can do everyday. So anyone who feels that fire prevention is just some thing we do for a couple of weeks in one month out of the year. I say to you stop for a minute and look out your window.
You see fire prevention is every day and why is that? Well that’s simple if you look out the same window you can see that local fire departments don’t only take time out for a week or two in one month to talk about fire prevention. But when it comes down to fire safety there is nothing like having the people who deal with it 24-7 both paid and volunteer fire departments come out and interact in the communities all year round where they protect by paraded down your main streets on holidays or holding open houses at the fire stations or even coming out to events and playing some football with the kids. Seen that makes some people remember about the forgotten days of calling the fire department to get the family cat out of the tree across the street or even where they would come out and play stick ball with the kids in the neighborhood or where they would come and fill you kids pool with water.
When it comes down to it I feel we all could use a good days work of fire prevention because there is now feeling like it when you see a child’s eyes light up when they see a fireman or firewoman come and interact with them. Where if its playing a sport with them or build a snowman with them at a winter festival or even if they just stop by there daycare to say hi. For those fire departments who are examples of this. They are changing the way fire prevention is being giving to there communities. They show that for that fire prevention is not just something you can do one or two weeks in one month of the year. But something you can do everyday. So anyone who feels that fire prevention is just some thing we do for a couple of weeks in one month out of the year. I say to you stop for a minute and look out your window.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Lori Greeno on
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Living out here in the foothills of CA, it is most definitely not a once a year thing. We have seen tremendous strides with the educating of the public in fire prevention. In our communities that line our winding little highway, people have gotten together a Fire Safe Council that continually goes out and does education. Thanks to laws that require a 100 yard clearance around every house, many are able to be saved when a wildland fire comes through. Of course you still have the folks with the "it won't happen to us" attitude and I wonder if they can ever be educated.
Be safe out there everyone....
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Permalink Reply by Greenman on
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In Scouts...both Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts....it's a year-round part of the program. Especially as it relates to outdoor activities and cooking, which overlap quite a bit in Scouting. I've often said Fire Prevention Month is every month, not just October!
I live in Korea right now, and Koreans use fire a tool much more than Americans do...right now the rice farmers are busy burning their fields every morning before temperatures rise, and gardeners and farmers burn last years dead stalks and such, then till the ash into the soil for this year's crop. But with all the burning which occurs here, there are actually very few occupancy fires. I think part of that is that Koreans USE fire as a tool and understand it better than Americans do. Suburban Americans just don't have very much exposure to, or experience with fire so they panic at even the smallest incipient fires. How many kitchen fires in American could have been prevented if the people in the home simply didn't panic when the pan caught fire...or better yet understood the danger and power of fire and didn't allow the pan to catch fire in the first place?
The Scouts in my troop regularly start fires…camp fires. They build fire-lays and understand the fire triangle (tetrahedron as they get older). My 10 1/2 year0old brand new Scouts recently learned how to make "char cloth," and how to make a "nest" from cedar bark (or Jute twine) and then use a flint and steel or bow to make fire in their nest using the char cloth! Those boys understood the power of fire when that nest began smoking in their hands, and saw just how quickly fire grows as that put their burning ball of tinder into their fire-lays and started their campfire. They also learn how to put it all the way out and to never leave a fire unattended. They are always amazed that we can re-start a fire which is "out" by putting new fuel on a hot fire pit. It’s the first thing they check when we arrive at a campsite now...is the fire pit hot?
So, bottom line to what I'm saying: Exposure to fire, understanding how it works and what power it holds are keys to fire prevention. I don't think simply telling people to be safe with fire teaches them to actually be safe with fire! People learn best by experience.
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