Broadway fire house will host public tour

LYNN-The Broadway firehouse will be open to the public on Wednesday, Oct. 10, as part of the Fire Department’s participation in National Fire Prevention Month.The Papa Gino’s restaurant chain, in conjunction with the Home Safety Council and Pepsi, is teaming up with local fire departments to help educate the community on fire safety and prevention.For the past 14 years, fire departments throughout New England have joined Papa Gino’s in this effort, which has helped nearly two million residents by supplying educational materials along with free pizza at fire safety open houses, according to Papa Gino’s spokesman Marianne Sabella Dempsey.Among the open house activities are visuals that include firefighter demonstration of the safest way to escape a smoke-filled room, cooking fire safety tips, fire prevention tips, and an appearance by Sparky the Fire Dog, a national fire safety mascot who interacts with the visiting children.The annual event is also an opportunity for the public to see firefighting apparatus up close.”We’ll have the apparatus outside and there will be firefighters there explaining things to the kids,” said Israel Gonzalez, a Lynn firefighter and member of the department’s Fire Prevention Bureau. “We give out lots of information, hats and coloring books for the kids. It’s an opportunity for the kids to got inside the engine and the ladder and get to know the Fire Department a little better.”Firefighters will also demonstrate how to install, check and maintain a smoke detector.”We are hoping to have some to hand out to those who really need them, but we’re still working on that,” Gonzalez said. “We are also giving out information in Spanish and some of the firefighters who speak Spanish will be there. Most of the people who get hurt are the ones who don’t have the necessary information. We try to reach everybody.”Each year, fire claims hundreds of lives throughout New England, and the open houses are aimed at reducing those numbers, said Dempsey, adding that the activities help to better prepare families in the event of a fire and hopefully save lives.The Broadway fire station at 424 Broadway will be open from 2-4 p.m. For more information about fire department open houses in Greater Lynn during October, call Dempsey at 508-435-2020 or, for information about the Broadway event, call Gonzalez at 781-596-0213.