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The kids might not understand it now, but the Jaws of Life extrication
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Austin Bork, 3, sits in the driver’s seat of a ladder fire truck on Wednesday at the Central Station in Winona. The station was open to the public from 6 to 8 p.m. (Photo by Paul Solberg/Winona Daily News) |
wasn’t just for a fun show. It was a real-life demonstration to show how firefighters help people out of cars should the doors fail to open.
Central Station hosted an open house for families Wednesday night as part of National Fire Prevention Week. For a few hours, kids had the run of the fire house, and parents relived childhood dreams.
Kids toured the facility and the trucks, and even took a seat at the wheel.
Britt Hendrickson, assistant chief at Central Station, said the open house was a good way to educate kids on what firefighters do, and more importantly to get them acquainted with fire-prevention tactics.
“We try to implement the 911 drill, making sure they know their home address, checking their smoke detectors, and knowing the EDITH (Exit Drill in the Home) strategy,” Hendrickson said.
Andrea Frick and her two children come every year to the open house.
“It’s a good chance to show them how firemen live and what they do,” she said.
Her 8-year-old son Aaron liked the fire truck in the parking lot, where a 105-foot ladder extended into the sky.
Firefighters also warned about the dangers of carbon monoxide, a colorless odorless gas known to kill people. Homeowners should have their furnaces, water heaters and anything that uses gas checked out, Hendrickson said.
“When it gets cold we like to have the house closed up tight,” he said. “It’s required by state law that every household has at least one working carbon monoxide detector.”
Smoke detectors are required also, and the kids were taught to check the batteries each daylight savings time.
“It’s very cheap insurance,” Hendrickson said.
Beating the cold in Winona often takes more than turning on the furnace, and he warns that anyone using a space heater should double check that the circuits are suitably wired by calling a licensed inspector.
“A lot of the old houses in Winona don’t have the right kind of circuits to properly wire a space heater,” Hendrickson said. “We had a lot of fires last year because of it.”
He reminds folks to double check the installation with any auxiliary heating appliance.
“It’s easier to prevent fires then to put them all out,” he said. “That’s our goal.”
