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 Fire Dep't Offerings:
- A child car seat program that loans, inspects, and installs child car seats to ensure proper use. - Ice and water safety instruction in schools, along with fire protection instructions for young people - Child Find, in conjunction with Child Find Alberta. The program finger prints young children to aid parents if their children go missing. - Coats for Kids, a winter clothing donation program. - Slip and fall prevention talks for senior citizens, plus the Seniors Emergency Alert System. - Free installation and testing of carbon monoxide and smoke detectors for seniors. - Several public safety and health programs, plus fire safety and prevention programs. Contact the fire department for more details on these and other programs. |
Kevin Wilson
Northern News Services
"The problem is the public just isn't aware of all the programs we provide," says Lieut. Chuck Dewar.
That means not enough people are getting their carbon monoxide detectors checked, seniors aren't getting enough slip and fall prevention education, and kids may not have the proper car seats.
"We prefer for our focus to be on education and prevention," says Dewar.
Deputy chief Sandy McPhee agrees.
"When you look at it, we only did 389 fire calls last year," says McPhee.
That compares with 1674 ambulance responses, 48 rescues, and 41 dangerous goods situations.
Perhaps recognizing this fact, McPhee and Dewar are trying to raise public awareness of programs accessible through the fire department.
"We're trying to be proactive rather than reactive," says McPhee.
"Our focus is on educating people," adds Dewar.
The rationale is simple: A proactive app-roach means problems are identified be-fore an emergency happens, averting potential tragedies.
Dewar says people are "quite often" surprised to find out how many different programs are offered by the fire department.
"A lot of people don't even know what we can do for them," he says.
