Knox County Fire Prevention Bureau Safety City
Since November of 2003, the Knox County Fire Prevention Bureau and Rural/Metro have provided personnel to work at Safety City, an educational facility for area second graders. Currently, Public Fire Safety Educator/Officer April Bradford is one of the two fire safety instructors. Her counterpart, Paul Trumpore, is both a firefighter and Chaplain for the Knoxville City Fire Department. Approximately 200 children learn and utilize fire safety skills each week at Safety City.
For the fire safety portion of their visit at Safety City, students first spend about one hour in the classroom where they watch a twenty-minute educational video entitled “Be Cool About Fire Safety.” The subsequent classroom instruction reinforces and supplements the knowledge and skills covered in the video. At the end of class, one student is chosen to put on firefighter gear. The students find this very entertaining, since the gear is a bit bigger than the student wearing it. Firefighters Paul and April also put on gear, to including air packs. The kids usually watch in awe as they display and explain the various sounds and alarms the air pack makes.
Following the classroom portion, students go to the fire safety house, which provides a realistic environment in which students can learn and discuss how to transfer their fire safety knowledge and skills to their own homes. Students learn a very important rule for preventing fires, “Don’t put anything that can burn next to anything that can get hot.” Starting in the living room, students learn about fire safety relating to fireplaces, candles, space heaters, etc. The fire safety house’s kitchen provides students the opportunity to point out and correct fire hazards. While in the upper level of the home, students are able to see an escape ladder and discuss its use as well as what to do if one is not available. Additionally, students participate in a fire escape drill. They particularly enjoy this hands-on activity because non-toxic smoke is used to simulate a house fire, triggering the smoke alarm. They are then able to utilize several of the skills they learned in class; fall and crawl, check the first way out by feeling the door with the back of the hand, if the first way out is blocked by fire/smoke then crawl to the second way out, exit the window safely, go to the meeting place, do not re-enter the burning house, etc. The students actually exit through an upper story window that does not require a ladder.
Knox County Fire Prevention Bureau Safety City
165 South Concord Street
Knoxville, TN 37919
Phone: (865) 215.7103
