A massive fire in Lynn. A fatal fire in the town of Westwood, and other deadly fires across the state. The new year is entering its third week with needless tragedies taking the lives of Massachusetts residents and leaving others homeless.
The state Fire Marshal frequently issues online warnings to Massachusetts residents to take precautions to avoid fires. The latest messages include warnings about prompt disposal of Christmas trees, and avoiding the use of blow torches to thaw frozen pipes.
The investigation into last week’s fire in a 150-year-old Broad Street apartment building centers on an apartment kitchen. The fire sent residents fleeing into the street, some with no possessions and barely sufficient clothing. A woman was seriously injured and the blaze means the Broad Street historic district running from Chestnut Street to Washington Square has lost one of its beautiful gems.
Fires occur because people are careless, or are not even aware of potential dangers posed by candles, space heaters, using stoves for heat and unattended cooking. But the year’s start offers an opportunity for the people most receptive to fire safety education to learn lifesaving lessons about fire safety and pass them onto their parents.
Firefighters routinely visit classrooms across the state to educate children about fire safety and plotting a safe route out of their homes. Lynn’s fire department matched fire safety classroom education with a fire safety poster contest and billboard campaign along with a citywide push to get smoke alarms installed in residences.
The multi-pronged approach engaged children in thinking about fire safety and ensured anyone driving by a billboard or clicking on community cable television received an important reminder about the basics involved in avoiding fires.
Now is a great time to reemphasize fire safety with children. Lessons learned at the year’s start in classrooms across the state will be passed on by kids to their parents. Any adult who watches or reads the news will make a mental connection between the fire safety message children in their lives are receiving and the fire tragedies dominating the news.
Firefighters work to save lives but they shake their heads over the needless tragedies resulting from fires that could have been prevented with working alarms and sprinklers and precautions taken by adults.
Candle, cigarette, and cooking fires are byproducts of carelessness. But even a half hour spent refreshing young impressionable minds with the ABCs of fire safety offers a real opportunity to reduce the chances of adults starting a fire.
This year can be the one in which families, firefighters and public service agencies band together to make preventing fires a top priority.
