The United States has a severe fire problem. Each year, fire causes over 3.5 billion dollars in property loss in residential structures. Over 6,000 people are killed and 28,000 injured. Eighty percent of fire deaths occur inside family residences. On any given day, an average of four children die from fire.
However, as the realities that we, as firefighters see on our daily calls, it is apparent that our children need safety education in areas not limited to fire safety alone. Our injury prevention program, Fire PALS (Prevent Accidents Live Safe) Program, closely mirrors Phoenix’s Urban Survival Program which combines fire and burn prevention with general injury prevention lessons to create a curriculum which teaches children to respond effectively to all types of life hazards. The Phoenix Fire Department originally conceived and implemented their vision for community injury prevention education, which is titled the Urban Survival for Schools Program.
The presence of our Fire PALS program in local schools is working toward meeting the goals set forth in Healthy People 2020: Objectives for the Nation. By providing life safety lessons in area schools we are increasing the proportion of elementary schools that provide comprehensive school health education to prevent health problems in the area of unintentional injury prevention in Black Hawk and Bremer counties in Iowa.
Waterloo Fire Rescue provides fire and life safety education to the following schools and communities: Waterloo Community Schools, Cedar Valley Catholic Schools, Dunkerton Elementary, La Porte City Schools, and Denver Community Schools. It is our mission to expand into additional outlying communities of Black Hawk and Bremer counties.
Waterloo Fire Rescue’s uniformed firefighters visit area schools to teach fire and life safety lessons. Fire PALS classes are scheduled on a rotating or as needed basis. Each grade level receives four thirty-minute fire and life safety lessons. The culminating lesson is a safety trailer visit, which includes the students experiencing a smoke house where they practice escape skills. Lessons that are taught are: firefighter familiarization, matches and lighters are tools not toys, dialing 911, stop-drop-and roll, crawl low under smoke, smoke detectors save lives, home escape planning, consequences of fire setting, bicycle and pedestrian safety, latchkey children safety, basic first aid.
The uniqueness of our program includes the collaborating agencies sharing their relevant safety information within the Fire PALS semester schedule. When available, the local SAFE KIDS coalition teaches accidental poisoning prevention along with bicycle and pedestrian safety. They also assist in a bicycle safety rodeo at each school. Think First Iowa presents brain and spinal cord injury prevention curriculum for the second and third grade students. In the past local Red Cross representatives taught two age level content areas. The Longfellow’s Whales Tales water safety curriculum has been taught to kindergarten and first grade students. The Project Safe Side severe weather safety curriculum has been taught in the second and third grades.
Fire PALS is implemented as a partnership between schools, teachers, firefighters, community organizations and parents to provide fire and life safety education for all school children. The response to these enhanced life safety skills has been overwhelming in our community.