Etowah Elementary students recently went home with a little extra homework: work with parents and guardians to memorize home addresses, create a family evacuation plan, designate a meeting place outside, and test all smoke alarms in the house.
Throughout the week, firefighters from the Etowah-Horse Shoe Volunteer Fire & Rescue Department individually taught every single classroom fire prevention and safety tips.
They also brought along some pretty cool gear.
Inside the school gym, firefighters demonstrated how rescue swimmers throw rope bags into rivers to reach someone in the water, showed the kayaks and gear used to go after a person in the water, and brought turnout gear and Jaws of Life to show students.
Outside, students were able to check out the department’s ladder truck, the tanker truck that holds 3,000 gallons of water, and the rescue truck. Mills River Fire Department also brought the Fire Safety House, which simulates the sounds, shaking blinds, scrolling TV alert, sirens, and power outages of a tornado.
Fire Prevention Officer Roger Freeman said the Etowah Horse Shoe V.F.R.D. has annually taught fire prevention and safety to students at Etowah Elementary for the past 20 to 25 years, and each year it’s grown.
“There’s probably about $8,000 to $9,000 invested in our budget for the fire prevention education program,” he said.
Etowah Horse Shoe V.F.R.D.’s fire prevention education program is so comprehensive, last year it earned the Life Safety Achievement Award from the National Association of State Fire Marshals Fire Research and Education Foundation (NASFM Foundation) and Grinnell Mutual Reinsurance Company.
Freeman taught students how to call 911 in an emergency, and the importance of being able to tell the dispatcher their location when they make the call. He told students to remind their parents to check their homes’ smoke and carbon dioxide detectors, and to get some if they didn’t already have them installed. Freeman also encouraged students to talk to their parents about creating a family evacuation plan that meets at a predetermined meeting place, and to practice fire drills with their families.
And in case of an actual house fire, Freeman said, “You go to your meeting place and never go back inside.”
Students learned another important lesson: under the hulking, somewhat intimidating turnout gear are friendly folks whose goal is to keep the kids and their families safe.
Freeman said he had the students try on the firefighters’ gear so they could see that there are people just like them – albeit a bit bigger – inside, and children could feel safe when they see firefighters, instead of scared.
Second-grader Audra was helped into the heavy turnout gear the public generally sees on firefighters. Freeman explained the gear is so heavy because it’s made with Kevlar and fire retardant material – along with steel boots. He said that, including the air pack, a firefighter puts on about 65 lbs. of gear before heading into a fire.
The gear also has built-in safety mechanisms. There’s the sensor on the air pack that automatically goes if a firefighter remains motionless for too long, calling for help on his or her behalf, and the reflective striping around the jacket cuffs and hem.
“The striping protects us because at 1350 degrees, it starts to burn,” signaling it’s time to get out, Freeman said.
Dominic, also in 2nd grade, tried on a bright yellow jacket resembling a thick windbreaker made of flame-resistant Nomex, which firefighters wear into a woods fire.
“The reason it’s yellow is we want people to see us,” so helicopters don’t drop tons of water directly onto the firefighters in the woods, Freeman said.
Outside, Engineer Ricky Brown showed students a backboard in the rescue truck, so that they’d know what it was if ever they were in an accident and firefighters needed to place them on one to stabilize them.
The Etowah-Horse Shoe V.F.R.D. also brought junior firefighters from West Henderson High and Rugby Middle to better connect with the elementary students.
“A lot of our former students come back as junior firefighters,” said Julie Shoemaker, administrative assistant at Etowah Elementary.
In fact, there’s a lot of crossover between the school system and the fire department.
For instance, 3rd Captain Brian McMinn’s eldest son, Spencer, was a graduate of the inaugural class of the Fire Fighter Academy at Balfour Education Center in January 2014 and now is a volunteer firefighter at the Etowah-Horse Shoe V.F.R.D. , in addition to working at Valley Hill Fire Department. McMinn’s youngest child is a student at Etowah Elementary, and his middle child is a junior firefighter at West – who came to help out at Etowah this week.
“The majority of the department has family here at the school,” McMinn said.
Perhaps that’s why when they visit each year, the firefighters bring bikes to raffle for the students, and huge gift baskets for the teachers.
Asst. Chief Dillon Baker – an Etowah Elementary alum – said the bike giveaways are also a chance to talk to students about wearing bike helmets, which accompany each raffled bike.
“It’s a teaching moment,” Baker said. “At the same time, they get a reward for it.”
“They always come with goodies for the staff,” Shoemaker said. “They’re a very generous department.”
“We just like to give back to the community,” said Capt. Tommy Moffitt.
(Written by Molly McGowan Gorsuch, HCPS Public Information Officer.)