Photo courtesy of Brad Appleton
The Mountain Brook Fire Department takes time each year to reiterate the importance of fire safety to high school students, but this experience goes beyond what they are taught in elementary school and includes live demonstrations.
Fire prevention is an important part of life, no matter how old you are. So to help younger generations fight fire with knowledge, the Mountain Brook Fire Department is carrying on the tradition of teaching students fire safety.
But the lessons are not just for elementary students. MBFD is working with the high school level, too.
Once a semester, members of the fire department travel to the high school “to teach a fire chemistry/fire prevention class to 10th-graders that are in chemistry,” said Brad Appleton. Appleton is the battalion chief at MBFD and has been working with this program since 2003, not long after it was started by former Deputy Chief Cliff Carlisle.
Appleton and apparatus operator Lee Curry went out to the high school in late August to talk about fire safety both at and away from home. Curry will soon be taking over the program for Appleton.
“He’s always had a passion for kids,” Appleton said of Curry.
The August seminar was the first class he taught, and Curry said they covered a range of topics. Typically, he said, they get the attention of the students by talking about and demonstrating fire chemistry, such as what makes things burn and why some things burn faster.
“The chemistry hooks them,” he said. Whenever there is fire involved, they usually can grab kids’ attention a little better.
First, they try to light a branch — one that has been in their demo kit for more than 10 years — on fire. “And it just will not burn,” Curry said, even after many years of trying. But when they do the same to sawdust, it catches immediately.
”It’s the kindling,” he said. This soon morphs into fire prevention practices students can use at home, such as washing oily rags and not overloading extension cords, a common mistake high schoolers and college students can make. Another thing to watch out for, he said, is leaving curling irons and flat irons turned on.
Appleton and Curry agreed that often, talking through scenarios will help the students remember the training they did in elementary school, such as crawling under smoke, touching a doorknob to see if it’s hot and following a fire safety plan.
But something they try to emphasize is the importance of having a fire safety plan, even for when they are not home. Appleton said they go over past emergency incidents such as The Station nightclub fire that happened in Rhode Island in 2003, which killed 100 people, 31 of whom died at the entrance.
Curry said they talk about exit strategies and being aware of how to get out of a room or building if the need arises, and they highlight finding other exits to avoid bottlenecking crowds in the same door through which they entered. An example they typically use is hotels.
“It usually sombers the mood and takes a little fun out of it, but it makes them realize it’s real,” Curry said.
Appleton and Curry agreed that both the students and the teachers enjoy the program, and by the end, “you can tell wheels are turning,” Curry said.
Even if the students don’t remember everything from the session, the fire department hopes at least some of it — the important ideas — stick with them and encourage them to think outside the box.
“I’m hoping each and every one of them has a little fun with chemistry … but understands just a little bit more about the fire service and what we do and what we’re hoping they can do,” Curry said. “In the end, you guys still take care of yourself. If you do your share, and we do our part, everything should work out fine.”
