As part of Fire Prevention Week the Humboldt Fire Department hosted an open house on Oct. 11.
Fire Prevention Week took place Oct. 9-15 with this year’s theme being “Don’t wait – Check the date! Replace smoke alarms every 10 years.”
Fire Chief, Mike Kwasnica, says it is important to get the message out about the need to change smoke detectors every 10 years because some people think once they put one in their house it will always work.
“They’re kind of tested out to that 10 year period, some of them become more sensitive, some of them become less sensitive. We just recommend for the cost of a smoke detector just to replace them every 10 years and the same thing with your carbon monoxide detectors.”
Some of the smoke detectors come with a built in lithium battery that has a 10 year lifespan and so once the battery expires the smoke detector just gets thrown out and replaced and others come with an expiry date on the underside of them that says when the sensor is going to expire, says Kwasnica.
The open house featured a number of exhibits, giveaways and live demonstrations, including a car extraction demonstration for the first time as well as the usual grease fire demonstration.
Kwasnica says doing the demostrations is a great way to teach the children the dangers of fires if they are not treated properly, for instance putting water on a grease fire, which causes a larger fire instead of putting it out.
“We try to get that through to them that not everything needs water to be put on so we try to show them a little demonstration with the pot where you just put a lid on and it’s done something simple and the same thing with the kitchen with the grease fire. If we can eliminate somebody getting really badly burned it what we’re kind of aiming for.”
There was a great crowd of people who turned out to the open house, exceeding even the expectations of Kwasnica, which he was really pleased to see because it gave people the opportunity to see what they do and look at the equipment they have.
“It’s nice to know that they want to come out and see what we’re all about. A lot of times all they do is they see us when we’re going by with the lights and sirens and they kind of wonder what we’re doing.”
The open house allowed the public to meet the firefighters themselves instead of just the guys in the suits and the trucks on the way by, says Kwasnica.
Becoming more personalized with the firefighters was important, says Kwasnica, especially for the kids.
“A lot of times kids see us as one way and they kind of get maybe scared or they’re not really sure but if they can come and meet us and see what we’re all about and see that we’re just normal people just like their moms and their dads and it makes them a lot easier to approach us.”
Kwasnica says the Fire Department does a lot more than just fight fires and encourages anyone who has any questions to feel free to ask them.
“We do lots of fire prevention talks and if we can reach a few of the kids than that’s what we’re looking for.”
Kwasnica says he hopes that the people who attended the open house left with the knowledge that fire is not always what people think it is and it does not always react the same way every time. He hopes that those in attendance will pass that message on to others.
The history of Fire Prevention Week dates back to the Chicago Fire in 1871 that killed up to 300 people, destroyed approximately 3.3 square miles of Chicago and left more than 100,000 people homeless.
“That’s when they started determining that maybe what they’re doing is not the best and that they have to look at different ways of building.”
Fire Prevention Week may only be one week of the year but Kwasnica says it encompasses so much more than that as it was a precursor to a number of fire codes in buildings as well as the implementation of a number of safety features including sprinklers, smoke alarms, Carbon Monoxide detectors and firewalls.
“It’s to prevent people from dying in fires so the Fire Prevention Week is just our one-week of the year where we can really push one message for that year.”
Overall Kwasnica was very pleased with how the evening turned out and wanted to give a big thank you to the Humboldt Broncos for stopping by and helping to do the barbecuing and to the Humboldt Sobey’s for donating all of the hotdogs.
