Lafayette County firefighters battle a house fire on County Road 105 Oxford, Miss., Tuesday, Aug. 19, 2014. The fire started as a car fire and spread to the structure. (Photo/Thomas Graning)
With October marking the beginning of fire prevention month, the Lafayette County Fire Department has focused its efforts on informing the public, especially during the week of Oct. 5 through Oct. 11.
The week was especially significant because it was the official fire prevention week, according to the station’s fire coordinator, Jerry Johnson. During that week, the members of the LCFD took their fire safety trailer, equipped with smoke detectors and fake fog, to different elementary schools, daycares and churches in order to educate people on what to do if a fire should ever start around them.
For Johnson, educating citizens on fire safety at a young age is crucial.
“If we can catch them at an early age, we are able to mold them from fire safe children to fire safe adults,” Johnson said.
Firefighter John Netherland explained the process of informing children about fire safety.
“We take it to schools, and we give kids a little instructional class about what to do if there’s a fire,” Netherland said. “We can flip a switch, and it will get warm in there, and [then] we pump in some fake fog and show kids how to crawl on the ground and stay away from fire.”
Netherland and others also agreed that an extremely dangerous household item that will cause many calls to the department during the fall and winter months are heaters, especially space heaters.
“Remember, space heaters must be three feet from any combustibles,” Johnson said. “If you’re using wood-burning heaters, you [must] make sure that they’re checked out and are operating properly.”
Firefighter Taylor Marks admitted that some of the calls the station receives regarding heaters aren’t life threatening.
“Throughout the year, people will stack up stuff against their heaters, especially if they have an old radiator,” Marks said. “They’ll put stuff on top of it throughout the year, and then it’ll finally kick on, start to smoke, and dust will accumulate. When the coils get hot, that’ll start to put off a smell of smoke.”
With the fall season comes many other hazards for outdoor fires, including burning leaves – something that is common for those whom live outside the city limits and are unable to have their leaves collected.
Johnson advises residents of Oxford to have a working smoke detector in their homes and to check it regularly to assure that it is functioning properly. The department has a program where the elderly, handicapped and those in single-family homes can call the station and if they qualify, firefighters will come out, install detectors in their home. If the residents don’t have detectors, the service is free of charge.
Netherland stressed finally the importance of having both functional smoke detectors and fire extinguishers, as well as knowing the exits to evacuate one’s house in case of a fire.
“The most important fire safety tip, I guess, is to know your exits to get out of your house,” Netherland said. “As long as you know to not mess around and try and get belongings or pictures or anything like that, you can usually rest assured that fires won’t burn down the entire house.”
