Fire Rescue creates virtual classroom to promote Fire Prevention Week

Posted On: September 30, 2020

It will look a lot different this year, with an interactive virtual classroom featuring children’s books, online carnival games, sing-alongs and loveable characters like Sparky the fire dog and Rover the home safety hound. But the message for this year’s Fire Prevention Week, which kicks off on Sunday, will be the same as always – teaching and practicing good fire safety habits saves lives.

A national event, Fire Prevention Week is being recognized this year from Oct. 4-10. All around the country, and right here in Volusia County, Fire Prevention Week traditionally includes fire station open houses, children’s games and visits by firefighters to schools and daycare centers to spread the safety message. But this year, with the COVID-19 pandemic, everything has changed.

“This year presented some unique challenges to us as a fire prevention bureau,” said Volusia County’s fire marshal, Shane Lanoue. “Because of the pandemic, we’re not able to engage in the usual public events and traditional community outreach. We knew we had to come up with something different.”

What Lanoue and his team came up with was a fun, interactive and animated online learning experience that teaches children about fire prevention practices and safety. If Volusia County Fire Rescue couldn’t come to the kids, Fire Prevention Week would go to them – virtually. Children can go directly to the site and explore. But the biggest value of the virtual classroom is as an online tool that teachers, parents and caregivers can use to help educate children about fire safety. (Click on the link to access the virtual classroom: http://www.tinyurl.com/VCFRfireprevention202.)

Volusia County Fire Chief Howard Bailey is thrilled with how the classroom turned out.

“They put together a really good safety campaign,” said Bailey. “The trick is always to capture the kids’ attention in order to get our message through. I really believe that the interactive features of the virtual classroom that they built is really going to be effective.”

With cooking being one of the leading causes of fires and fire injuries, the theme of this year’s Fire Prevention Week is “Serve Up Fire Safety in the Kitchen”. The virtual classroom that Volusia County Fire Rescue created includes embedded links to children’s books and about a dozen fire safety videos. In one slide, the user can navigate to safety messages by clicking on various fire and burn hazards in the kitchen – like a coffee pot, a cup of coffee and a sheet of cookies fresh out of the oven. The classroom reinforces important kitchen safety rules, reminding children to stay at least 3 feet away from the stove and open hot containers slowly and away from their face. Other videos educate children on things like stop, drop and roll and how and when to call 911.

One of the highlights of the online experience is an approximately 8-minute, narrated video showing the different features of a Volusia County fire truck – everything from the lights and siren and engineer panel to saws, ladders and medical supplies.

Although not technically part of Fire Prevention Week, also new is an online community survey that Volusia County Fire Rescue launched this week. The aim is to get feedback from residents in the county’s fire rescue jurisdiction – unincorporated Volusia and the cities of Lake Helen, Oak Hill and Pierson. The 18-question survey will be open through Oct. 31.

To take the survey, click on the following link: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/JZG5KKZ.