Bath Township Fire Department paid a visit to local students for Fire Prevention Week. As part of this year's theme of "Not Every Hero Wears a Cape, Plan and Practice Your Escape", the students learned about having a plan when it comes to getting out of their house quickly in case of a fire.
While these students may be young, those with Bath Township say that it's never too early to start teaching kids about fire safety.
"Our prevention program starts very young and we hope that we plant little seeds from kindergarten, first grade, second grade that they carry with them to adulthood," said Chief Joe Kitchen with the Bath Township Fire Department. "We believe that fire prevention and fire safety education should be lifelong."
And that learning can be lifelong as parents can practice a home escape plan with their kids - that means having two ways to get out of every room and working smoke alarms on every level of the home, plus setting a safe meeting place somewhere outside.
Doing these simple steps could make a huge difference:
"In my career, I’ve seen a lot of fires where people have gotten hurt and when we sit down and talk to them we realize that they never had an escape plan," said Christopher Jackson, a fire inspector with the Lima Fire Department. "First of all, most people don’t think that it will happen to them, but when it does happen to you, you need to know what to do. Just like we talk to kids about practicing their instrument, or practicing sports, or homework, they have to practice their home fire escape drills too."
"We really want families to practice it; sometimes they think that 'Well, we live here every day, we don’t need to practice in our home,' but in pitch-black darkness and smoke, they really do need to practice," said Chief Kitchen.
Local fire departments will be continuing to visit schools throughout the week.
