Honourary Junior Firefighter program to raise awareness of fire safety

Chestermere Fire Services (CFS) is introducing a new Honourary Junior Firefighter program to help raise awareness of fire safety among Chestermere youth.
“What we’re doing with it is…trying to just get kids involved,” said CFS Capt. Brent Paquette.
The program is being rolled out in advance of Fire Prevention Week which runs Oct. 9-15. The theme this year is “Don’t Wait – Check the date” referring to the expiry date on smoke detectors.
“That one’s really more for a parent…there’s not really a huge way to be able to involve kids in it,” said Paquette of the fire prevention theme.
CFS wanted to include kids and developed this plan to remind both children and their parents to have a family escape plan and a meeting place outside of the home for emergencies.
The junior firefighter program was suggested by a couple of the firefighters led by Firefighter Jake Gillinger.
“[He] thought it would be a neat and new way to get the kids involved,” said Paquette.
Kids and their parents can go online to the cities website, www.chestermere.ca, and follow the links to the fire services page where they can download and print the colouring page and fire escape plan.
After completing both they can take them to the Fire hall where the can show their escape plan to an on duty firefighter who will then present them with a junior firefighter certificate.
Kids hand in their colouring page which will be displayed at the fire hall.
“We’ll put it up on the wall to help decorate our hall,” said Paquette.
Fire prevention and safety is really important to discuss with kids.
“We want it to be second nature to them,” said Paquette, “we don’t want them in the event of an emergency to have to think about what do I do now?”
The goal of the plan is to get families safely out of their homes or failing that to a safe place to shelter in place in an emergency.
“So they aren’t…going somewhere else where they shouldn’t be that makes it tougher for fire personnel to find them,” he said.
An effective escape plan includes two different ways to get out of the house.
If there isn’t a second escape route, then the plan needs to cover where to shelter in place.
“Make sure they’re by a window, make sure they’re visible to fire personnel when they arrive,” he said.
“The biggest thing is…to actually practice their plan,” said Paquette.
It is important to include everybody, even pets, in the plan.
“There’s lots of times where we have people try going back in after a pet,” he said.
In addition to having and practicing an escape plan, it is important to make sure that smoke and carbon monoxide detectors are working.
All detectors have an expiry which depends on the manufacturer.
“Ten [years] is definitely the max and then those ones are expired,” said Paquette.
“There’s maintenance that needs to be done on smoke detectors as well and people don’t really realize that,” he said.
He recommends that people vacuum their smoke and carbon monoxide detectors when they are cleaning their homes.
Paquette said that if anyone in the community has questions about fire safety they can contact the fire hall.
“We will gladly come out and meet with anybody,” he said, “We’ll even help and do an escape plan with the kids.”
Crews can also be contacted to do home safety inspections.
To contact Chestermere Fire Services go online to www.chestermere.ca or phone (403) 272-9878.