Monday, October 7, 1996

Abilene students to learn about fire safety

By TANYA EISERER
Staff Writer

Smoke fills the air and the detector blares a shrill noise. What do you do?

Abilene students will learn the answer to this question when the Fire Safety House visits their schools this month.

Designed to simulate a real home, the brown 28-foot trailer with 911 for its address gives hands-on training to Abilene's third-graders about what they should do in a fire situation.

"The kids love it, and they look forward to us coming," said Abilene Fire Department Capt. Scott Riggins, the department's fire safety officer.

Firefighters began taking the house, which has a nontoxic smoke machine and a smoke detector to provide a sense of realism, to elementary schools last week as part of Fire Prevention Month.

The official theme for the month is "Let's Hear it for Fire Safety, Test Your Detectors." Fire Prevention Week began Sunday. Since 1911 the official week has always fallen during the week of Oct. 9, date of the Chicago fire of 1871, Riggins said.

"In the 1800s, Mrs. O'Leary lived in Chicago. One day, she was milking her cow and accidentally knocked over a lantern, which started her barn on fire," Riggins told a room of third-graders. "Before we knew it, we had 1,900 buildings that were burned down."

Recently firefighters took the House, built by the Junior League of Abilene several years ago, to Jackson Elementary.

About 15 inquisitive children from Bobbye McMillon's class trooped in to tour the facility - which includes a kitchen for teaching children about home safety and a living room for showing a safety video.

The children learned about EDITH, or Exit Drill in the Home, in the living room from a safety video which counsels them that "what you do in these first few minutes can be the difference between life and death."

Riggins showed how to create their own EDITH plan.

"How many of y'all have smoke detectors in your house?" he asked.

Most of the children raised their hands and said they did have them.

"What would happen if y'all woke up one night and found smoke in your room?" he then asked.
"I would drop and roll to the floor," replied Christopher Hall.

Creating a sample escape plan for the Fire Safety House House, Riggins explained that a fire exit plan should include two ways out of each room in the house and a prepicked meeting place outside.
Riggins then sounded the fire alarm and instructed the students about how to escape from the Fire Safety House's bedroom, either through the door or the window.

"You're going to crawl over to the door and put your body to it. "Depending on if it feels cool or hot, we can determine if we want to open it or not," Riggins said. "What if the door feels cool, but the doorknob feels hot? We're gonna crack it and make sure that no smoke is coming in. If we see smoke, we're going to shut it real quickly.

"You want to be real careful about what's on the other side."

Riggins filled the room with nontoxic smoke, telling the children, "The smoke can't hurt you. It just kind of stinks."

He instructed them to crawl to the door, feel it and open it if it felt cool. When they opened it, Riggins flipped a switch that turned on red and white strobe lights that looked like fire.

The students then had to crawl to the window and climb out to safety.

In the next lesson, Lt. Steve Taylor held up a smoke detector in the kitchen and asked the children, "What is this?"

"It's a fire alarm," replied a confident Garrett Miller.

The children listened intently as Taylor explained that smoke detectors should be installed in every room in the home and tested once a month.

"At night time, when you're sleeping, there's no way to know when you have a fire unless you have a smoke detector," Taylor said.

He told the students that lighters and matches "are not toys to play with. Kids shouldn't play with because they're real dangerous. Every fire that happens starts real small, and it grows into a big fire."
Taylor also warned the students not to dial 911 for fun because they will get caught. He then asked them how the police will know who called.

"The police have something in the phone that can track where you live," responded the talkative Garrett Miller again.

Taylor added, "Even if you don't say anything, they'll know exactly where the call came from. 911 is an important tool."

"We'd be in big trouble," added little Christopher Hall.

Taylor also also advised the children not to forget "stop, drop and roll."

"You'd be surprised at how many people instead of stop, dropping and rolling, they take off running," he said.

Because smoke fills a room from the top, it's better to stay low so carbon monoxide doesn't fill the lungs, he said.

The fire department also gives demonstrations at schools, day cares and churches. Citizens may also visit one of the fire stations.

For more details, contact Riggins at 676-6682.