Getting Safer Together
Warwickshire Fire and Rescue has been showing its support for Child Safety Week with visits to preschool centres in the North Warwickshire borough.
The week, in which fire crews get around centres where children and families gather to pass on key home fire safety messages, has seen staff from Coleshill Station attend various centres including Treehouse Nursey in Water Orton.
Other crews attended Bournebrook C of E Primary School, Wood End Primary School in Atherstone and Hurley Primary School in Atherstone.
The most recent statistics available show that 1,100 children were injured in accidental house fires in 2006, many of them in the kitchen. To combat this, the Fire Kills campaign is arming parents with information to help keep them and their children safe in the home.
Andy Bates, area risk team manager for North Warwickshire, said: “We are delighted to make contact with the children’s centres. For young families, the risks that new children bring may not always be apparent. We like to get out and talk to families so they know what to do to make their homes safer without learning the hard way.
“It’s important that mums and dads talk to their children about fire safety and set a good example to help them stay safer together. Explaining the importance of having a smoke alarm and testing it weekly, for example, can significantly reduce the devastating consequences of having an accidental house fire.”
Claire Essex, manager of the Treehouse Nursery, said: “Having the firefighters attend makes the children more aware of their environment. It fills in the gap between them seeing firefighters and then knowing what they actually do and why they have to do it.”
Child Safety Week is run by Child Accident Prevention Trust and is taking place between 22nd to 28th June 2009. Tips in child safety are available by logging on to http://www.childsafetyweek.org.uk, to promote the ’safer together’ theme and to help parents ensure they and their kids stay safe from accidental fire in the home.
Warwickshire Fire and Rescue offer a free home fire safety check. For a free check, call 01675 462007.