GREAT BEND, Kan. — The Great Bend Fire/EMS department is gearing up for Fire Prevention Week held from Oct. 5-11 by visiting local elementary schools to spread this year’s message: “Charge into Fire Safety: Lithium-ion Batteries in Your Home.”
The GBFD will cover fire safety, including how to call 9-1-1, how to stop, drop, cover your face and roll and the importance of safely buying, charging and recycling lithium-ion batteries.
Firefighters will also talk with students about finding two ways out of any room, having a designated meeting place in the event of a fire and crawling low under smoke. Sparky the Fire Dog will also be in attendance to help educate the children.
Students first through third grade will go through the fire safety trailer which consists of three rooms – a kitchen, living room and bedroom. The kitchen will be used to demonstrate kitchen safety, while the living room will be used to teach general home safety. The bedroom will feature a heated door to teach students how to use their senses to detect heat. Through this, they will learn not to open the door to prevent flames from entering and instead escape through the window.
The GBFD will reach nearly 1,500 students from kindergarten through sixth grade and each student will receive a home escape plan. Fire helmets will be handed out to kindergarteners, while first graders will be given foldable fire trucks and second graders will receive wall growth charts.
Fire Prevention Week has been nationally recognized during the first week of October in the United States since 1922. It’s observed each year during the week of Oct. 9 to commemorate the Great Chicago Fire which burned over 2,000 acres, claimed over 250 lives, destroyed 17,400 structures and left 100,000 homeless on Oct. 8, 1871.
For questions regarding fire safety please visit the National Fire Protection Association website or call the fire department at (620) 793-4140. Barton County is accepting household hazardous waste, including lithium-ion batteries, on Oct. 18 at the landfill located on 250 NE 30 Road.
