By Jan Dumay
Fort Leavenworth Lamp – October 10, 2013
Eisenhower Elementary School kindergartner Landon Jansen emerges from a tunnel, filled with fake smoke, during a Fire Prevention Week activity Oct. 8 at Fire Station No. 2. Children from post schools have been visiting the firehouse this week to learn more about fire safety. Photo by Prudence Siebert/Fort Leavenworth Lamp
Standing in a trailer that Fort Leavenworth firefighters refer to as a “Mobile Fire Safety House,” Mike Redford stood before a group of MacArthur Elementary School third-graders Oct. 7 telling them about microwave oven safety.
“Microwaves aren’t real dangerous, are they?” asked Redford, Fort Leavenworth’s lead fire inspector and public educator. “They’re pretty easy to use, but the thing you want to keep in mind about microwave ovens is that only certain things are supposed to go in there. Right? Because it there’s aluminum foil or metal or something like that, that causes a spark and that causes a big problem. Only stuff that’s supposed to go in there goes in there. Don’t ever turn it on and walk off and let it go. You want to stick around in case it cooks quicker than you think.”
Microwaves are responsible for 40 percent of cooking-related burn injuries, said Christian Howell, assistant chief of fire prevention, and were one of many topics discussed with the students who were participating in Fire Prevention Week. This year’s national campaign is focused on kitchen fires.
“The idea is to get people to raise their awareness,” Howell said. “It’s a good time of year, especially coming up on the holiday season when cooking and decorations and things like that are out.”
This week at the main fire station, the firefighters taught preschoolers up to third-graders about kitchen safety, tailoring the information specific to their ages.
“With the third-graders, we talk about things they can communicate to their parents about how to make the kitchen safer,” he said. “But with the younger kids, we focus on, ‘Stay out of the kitchen. Don’t play with the stove. Don’t try to cook things yourself.’”
The firefighters also plan to visit the three elementary schools on post sometime this month to teach fourth-graders about fire safety.
Howell said children are in a high-risk category, especially when it comes to getting out of their houses in an emergency. So during the week, the younger children were taught those crucial things, and about how to crawl through a “smoke tunnel,” what firefighters’ uniforms and gear look like, and the two kinds of trucks they use: one for firefighting and one for rescue.
“We always do some basic stuff with them,” Howell said. “We always focus on how to escape from a bedroom if your house is filling with smoke. We talk with them about 911 and what to say when they call. Kids get really excited about it and they take it to their families. They’ll be the ones going home saying, ‘Test the smoke detector.’”
Kayden Sarnacki, 8, especially was impressed with the amount of equipment the firefighters have on them when they arrive to battle a blaze.
“They said it was like two kids combined with all that weight,” she said.
But it’s the adults who Howell also wants to reach this week about fire prevention and safety.
“The tough thing with adults is they think they know everything,” he said. “The two biggest things that would reduce kitchen fires would be attend what you’re cooking and stay in the kitchen. And keep things away from the stove.”
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