By DON FLETCHER
News Staff Writer
October is officially recognized as National Fire Prevention Month (formerly Fire Safety Month), and this week (October 6-12) is officially recognized as National Fire Prevention Week, but those designations have little meaning for Atmore firefighters.
To Atmore Fire Department (AFD) personnel, every day, week and month is a good time to interact with local children (and sometimes adults) and teach them the basics of fire safety and fire prevention.
“This week is Fire Safety Week, and we’ll start Wednesday going into the local schools,” Fire Chief Ronald Peebles said. “We’ll go to other schools on Thursday and Friday, and we’ll go to a couple more later this month.
“We don’t observe Fire Safety Week or Fire Safety Month, per se, though. We’ll go to any school, public or private, or to daycares, churches or anywhere we’re asked. And it doesn’t have to be during Fire Safety Week or any other particular week or month; we’ll go in January, if that’s when they want us.”
City firefighters and Sparky the Fire Dog will bring firetrucks to each presentation. Children will get a close look at the vehicles and the fire suppression equipment they carry, along with a brief explanation of how the saws, fire extinguishers and other items work.
Firefighters will mingle with students and will give talks about how to keep fires from happening, and how to deal with them if they do. They will also hand out goody bags filled with coloring books, crayons, stickers, plastic firefighter helmets and other items.
This year’s presentations will again be conducted without one of the hands-on fire safety tools that was once a staple of such visits.
“We’re not using our Smoke House again this year,” he said. “We haven’t used it since COVID, and it’s flu season, so we don’t want to get the kids in an enclosed place. We’ll hold it out one more year, but hopefully it will be back next year.”
Peebles said the department’s constant visits to schools and other locations has been even more of a success than he had hoped. And, he added, plenty of proof exists that the AFD visits are accomplishing their goal.
“It’s been real successful,” he said. “In my opinion, this is one of the best things we’ve ever done. And we’ve got lots of stories — one is probably the best story since I’ve been here — about young kids who used what we taught them to help save their families when they had a fire. It’s just a great program.”