More than 90 students from Briagolong Primary School participated in residential and bushfire safety education sessions at the school, as well as a whole-of-school emergency evacuation scenario.
On Friday 3 August, students engaged in an interactive discussion about home fire safety, covering home fire escape plans, getting out and staying out during fires, and the importance of having working smoke alarms in their homes. The children were also educated on some easy and important ways to clear vegetation around their homes and how to stay safe during a bushfire.
Students were also given the opportunity to participate in a scenario where a classroom was filled with smoke and they were then taught how to crawl low in smoke and exit a room safely.
The sessions were facilitated by CFA educators Allan Cracknell, Ben Trotter and local brigade members including local Briagolong brigade Captain John Hamment, Heather Hamment, and many new up-and-coming members of his team. The brigade members brought along the tanker and children were able to experience squirting the hoses and looking over the tanker.
It was great to see how many children were well aware of the causes of home and bushfires. One child shared that they would be going home that night to 'tell mum and dad to test the smoke alarms'. The children were also given a bag with educational material to take home to share important information about the upcoming bushfire season with their families.
District 10 Community Education Coordinator Jodie Wilmes said: “Fire safety education is such an important subject in primary years. Not only does it embed and reinforce important fire safety messages that can be drawn on throughout the children’s lives, but many children take what they learn from these types of sessions back to their families to create awareness within their own homes,”
“In 2017 in the South East Region alone, CFA responded to over 590 residential fires. These statistics can be reduced by making simple changes within our homes, like testing smoke alarms often and ensuring our electrical and heating appliances are clean and in good working order.”