West Pierce Teaching Fire Safety to Kids During National Prevention Month

Editor's note: The following is a news release from West Pierce Fire & Rescue.

Each year, October is recognized as Fire Prevention Month.  In cooperation with the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA), West Pierce Fire & Rescue supports this year’s theme of “Keep Your Family Safe from Fire”. 

The importance of having working smoke alarms in the home is emphasized, while learning about all aspects of fire safety.

West Pierce will conduct assemblies in 14 elementary schools throughout the Clover Park and University Place School Districts this month. In those assemblies, students from Kindergarten through fifth grade will participate in the “Spin It to Win It” game and learn about fire safety.  

Sparky the Fire Dog is always a huge hit at these assemblies and demonstrates many of the proper fire safety techniques.  The students also learn about the month’s theme by watching “Sparky’s Fire Safety Music Video”, created by West Pierce personnel.  This video shows students what to do if there was a fire in their home, all while entertaining and keeping their attention. 

The video was created, written, filmed and performed by on-duty personnel to avoid overtime costs or outsourcing these tasks. In years past, firefighters have helped to put on skits, play games and sang a fire-safety song with the kids.  This year, due to budget cuts, having extra sets of hands from off-duty firefighters was just not an option.  One way to scale back costs, but not the level of service, was to create the video. 

West Pierce personnel worked on creating and editing the video with on-duty personnel and will show it at each assembly.  

“This is a great way for our folks to be involved without the added expense of overtime costs,” said Fire Chief Ken Sharp.  “It’s important for us to maintain our current level of service, no matter who the audience may be.”

In addition to the assemblies, all students in the two districts are eligible to participate in the Fire Prevention Month contest, which includes a checklist of safety measures for their home.  Each class who receives 100 percent participation will win an ice-cream party with their firefighters.