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Considerations:
Select engaging, age appropriate material to teach kids fire
safety skills. A variety of websites offer games, quizzes, coloring
sheets and crossword puzzles to educate young children including this
one. Follow this link
http://www.bonitafire.org/01kids2.html
and click on the images for educational paperwork.
Contact us about
fire safety education opportunities. Our Public Education Specialist
visits preschools and elementary schools in September, October and
November armed with fire safety facts, stickers and workbooks. Kids may
listen more intently to another adult explain about these important life
saving strategies. Tours of the fire station are also available to
families. There are no limits to the number of participants and of
course there is no cost.
Prevention and Solutions:
Fire safety education is the key to preventing childhood fire injuries
and fatalities. Set a strong example. Involve your kids in home fire
prevention tasks like changing smoke detector batteries and checking
fire extinguisher expiration dates. Don't model dangerous choices by
leaving fires, cigarettes or cooking unattended or neglecting fire
safety maintenance.
Teach your
children by talking about how to avoid fire hazards. Tour your home with
a child, looking for overloaded extension cords, flammables near heat
sources, improperly stored matches, lighters and fuels, and hazards such
as stoves and fireplaces. This is a great time to talk to kids about the
dangers of lighters and matches. Remind them that these are tools for
adults to use and they should never touch them. Ask them to always tell
an adult if they see them in an unsafe area at home or at school. It is
their responsibility to keep siblings and other children from touching
the matches or lighter while waiting for the adult to put them in a safe
place.
Maybe the most
important thing you can do is practice fire escape strategies, escape
routes and meeting places. Before you need these skills in an emergency,
practice your Safe Escape Plan. This should include:
1. Two
ways out of every room in your home. You can create a diagram of
your house and draw arrows if a visual chart will work best for your
child.
2. Since
children learn best by doing, ask them to practice escaping as if there
were real fire in their house. Teach children to crawl low under smoke.
We like to remind them, "Smoke goes up and so we go down". Since smoke
contains the harmful gas, Carbon monoxide, children should crawl on the
floor as if there is smoke filling their rooms.
3. They
should always try to escape from their primary exit, which in most cases
is their bedroom door. Teach your child to feel the door to see if it's
hot before opening it to crawl into the hallway. They should test the
door by feeling with the back-side of their hands. This way, if the door
is hot it will not burn their palms which they will need for crawling to
their next exit- the window.
4.
Practicing escaping from the window will provide valuable knowledge of
how to open each window, any special locking considerations, how to push
out the screen and climb out of the window carefully. If your child
sleeps in a room on the second story or higher you may need to purchase
a roll-down step ladder which can be attached to the window frame.
5. Once
outside, children should dial 9-1-1 from a neighbors home or cell phone.
NEVER call from inside a burning building. When practicing, teach your
child that this is a very important number. They should not dial this
number unless there is a real emergency. Provide some examples of a real
emergency to teach them when dialing 9-1-1 is appropriate.
6. Teach
your family to meet at your Safe Meeting Place. This is where you will
also meet the firefighters. The Safe Meeting Place should be one
location in the front yard such as the end of your driveway, your
mailbox or even your neighbors house. This allows the firefighters to
easily see your family as they drive down your street. Teach your
children that it is their responsibility to talk to the firefighters if
no adults are present when they arrive. They will ask your children if
everyone is out of the house. It is very important for them to give an
answer to the best of their knowledge because their answer will
determine if the firefighters will enter the house to rescue other
family members or if they can focus on saving your belongings.
A big question
that we get at our fire safety presentations is, "What about my pets".
We like to remind students that pets are very smart. They will
instinctively know that they need to get away from danger. If they are
not able to exit the house, children can tell the firefighters where
they saw them last; in a cage in the living room, in a tank on the
patio, walking in the hallway, etc. Firefighters will do their best to
locate the pet and bring them outside to safety, just as they would do
for a human. We understand that pets are a part of the family too.
Always teach
children to never try to carry toys or pets with them while they're
crawling out. We explain that this will make them slower and of course
we want to get away from the fire as fast as possible. A better
alternative is calling their pet's name on their way out. The pet may
follow them to safety. And we remind them that we can always get new
toys and clothes, but we can't replace them. They are one of a kind and
we all want them to be as safe as possible.
Warning: Many kids are
extremely heavy sleepers. Practice setting off your smoke detector at
night when they're not expecting to hear the sound. You may be surprised
to find that your child doesn't wake up! There should be a smoke
detector in each room of your home, including your child's bedroom.
Press the test button on the face of the alarm for it to go off. Use
this as an opportunity to test your escape plan.
Unfortunately,
many small children are afraid of firefighters. In an already scary
situation, they see an unfamiliar creature with a mask crawling towards
them and they hide! This becomes a disastrous situation if the
firefighter can't find your child before they inhale too much smoke.
Start exposing your children to firefighters in gear when they're young.
Avoid words like scary or monster-as in, "See he's not scary is he?"
and never relate a firefighter's breathing to the sound of Darth Vader.
It has been polled that children voted Darth Vader as the #1 villain.
Please visit us at the fire station so we can provide information,
educational materials, and show them a firefighter in gear. You can call
the Public Educator, Nicole Giuliano at 239-949-6228 to make an
appointment for the visit.
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