Fire Safety "Treasure" Hunt Challenge

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I was in the library the other day, and while I was browsing around looking for books and movies, I found something I didn’t expect to find: A pamphlet put out by my state on planning how to escape from a home in case of a fire. I picked it up out of curiosity and was amazed at the wealth of important information contained in such a small pamphlet. It was basically an outline for planning and carrying out a fire drill in your home.

I was about to toss aside the pamphlet, thinking, this kind of thing will never happen to me! But then I rethought that choice thinking; A small amount of people are involved in plane crashes each year, but I wear my seatbelt and listen to the instructions every time anyway. That old adage of an ounce of prevention being worth a pound of cure floated across my mind and I quickly tucked the pamphlet into my bag.

Later, when I got home, I started doing a little browsing around to find out more about this pamphlet that was now in my hands (albeit covered in dribbles of melted chocolate…we went to the ice cream shop after the library ). The first moments of my search led me on an hours long hunt in search of little treasures of information about fire safety.

I started by finding facts about why fire prevention and safety awareness is important; (all of these facts were found at www.epicorp.com)

• A house fire is reported every 90 seconds in the United States. That turns out to be over 1.9 million house fires each year.

• Someone dies as the result of a house fire every 2 ½ hours…that’s 4000 people and 25,000 more are injured.

• Most of the deaths and injuries reported could have been prevented.

So here is the challenge to all of you; Lets share ideas on how we can prevent house fires, and more importantly, the deaths and injuries caused by those fires.

I’ll start (and give you a heads up on where to look). I searched for “fire marshal” for my state (which happens to be Ohio…but I know every state has a similar site available). This led me to page where there was a section about resources. When I clicked that link, I was taken to a page where there were lists of printable worksheets, coloring pages and checklists of all kinds and for all ages.

The two that jumped out at me, and the ones I will share right now are these:

1) Get our Alive and Survive; Are you Prepared? This printable (PDF) pamphlet presented a safety checklist including awareness of hazards presented by carelessness, electrical , housekeeping and even heating and cooking. They also outlined the basics of getting out, prevention, protection and planning. Absolutely excellent! You can access this pamphlet by clicking here:

http://www.com.ohio.gov/fire/docs/fire_Get%20Out%20Alive%20and%20survive...

2) Hot Spot, a Preschool Worksheet. You’re never too young to be smart about fire prevention! This printable (and colorful) worksheet is a chance a for you to work through what things are hot and shouldn’t be touched, and which things are not and okay to touch with you young child. Simple and colorful! Click here to be led to the page:

http://www.com.ohio.gov/fire/docs/fire_Hot%20Spot.pdf

And now it’s your turn! Share you finds, tips, and stories so we can all be a little better off!