Fire Prevention Week goes virtual

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This article was published 07/10/2021 (1820 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

After significantly scaling back operations last year due to COVID-19, local organizers behind Fire Prevention Week are offering a completely virtual slate of programming this time around.

All of the activities and learning resources for this year’s international campaign, which runs until Saturday, are available through the City’s of Brandon’s official website, with the hopes of keeping schoolchildren from kindergarten to Grade 8 better informed about fire safety.

Brandon Fire and Emergency Services public educator Heather Penner told the Sun on Monday that Fire Prevention Week 2021 is much more streamlined compared to last year since local officials had to cancel most of their activities in 2020 outright because of the ongoing pandemic.

But after being given a full year to prepare, Penner believes this new format could actually reach a larger number of people and engage with families more directly.

“Whatever the kids learn about fire safety in school, we want them to take that home and tell their parents,” she said.

“The goal really is to have every family make a home escape plan, test their fire alarms, make sure that their exits work, all of that.”

The theme of Fire Prevention Week 2021 is “Learn the Sounds of Fire Safety.” School-age children are encouraged to better familiarize themselves with devices like smoke alarms and carbon monoxide detectors.

While the theme doesn’t seem particularly topical for the pandemic era, Penner said the National Fire Protection Association actually chose it because of reports they received from educators throughout the last year.

“A lot of public educators for fire departments were doing virtual lessons, so when the kids were actually at home, the teachers were finding that they would hear the smoke alarm in the child’s home either going off or chirping when the battery is low,” she said.

“So I guess that came up a couple times, and that’s why the NFPA went this way.”

Of course, Penner admits this year’s campaign can’t provide a virtual equivalent of some of Fire Prevention Week’s more popular in-person events, such as Fire Chief for a Day or the Celebrity Firefighter Olympics, since the fire hall is not open to the public right now.

However, Penner remains hopeful that her duties as a BFES public educator will return to some sense of normalcy by the end of the year, since she’s usually tasked with conducting in-person presentations on fire safety in schools between December and May.

“When December comes, depending where we are with COVID, the plan is that I will return to the classroom for that,” she said.

“And next year, depending on what it looks like for COVID, we would probably go back to that Fire Chief for a Day [program] and have it in the fire hall.”

In the meantime, Penner encourages teachers and parents to take advantage of the digital resources currently at their fingertips, even if they prefer to absorb the material through an in-person format.

“It’s not the same as being in the same room with the kids and being able to talk to them face-to-face, but it has worked out,” she said. “You have to roll with it and adapt and do what you can.”

Any Brandon-area teachers or parents can take part in this year’s Fire Prevention Week activities by visiting brandon.ca/public-education/fire-prevention-week.

The NFPA has sponsored the public observance of Fire Prevention Week since 1922.

Fire Prevention Week originally emerged after the wake of the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, when more than 250 people were killed and approximately 17,400 structures were destroyed.

» kdarbyson@brandonsun.com

» Twitter: @KyleDarbyson