National Fire Prevention Week, celebrated this year Oct. 4-10, was established to commemorate the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, in which more than 250 people died, some 100,000 were left homeless and more than 17,400 buildings burned.

The fire began Oct. 8, when according to legend, Mrs. Catherine O’Leary’s cow kicked over an oil lamp. The blaze continued well into the next day.

President Woodrow Wilson issued the first National Fire Prevention Day proclamation in 1920.

Since 1922, National Fire Prevention Week has been observed on the Sunday through Saturday in which Oct. 9 falls. Subsequent presidents have signed proclamations establishing a national observance during that week every year since 1925.

This year’s event promotes the theme that every bedroom in a house needs a working smoke alarm to alert sleeping family members to a fire.

I recently had the opportunity to tag along with volunteer firefighters as they practiced rapid intervention training to “rescue” one of their own, played by firefighter Adam Dietrich of New Tripoli, who was “trapped,” surrounded by debris in the cellar of a “burning” house.

Taking part in the RIT practice at a house next to the New Tripoli Fire Company were some 23 firefighters including some from Hanover Township Station 15, Goodwill Station 10, Germansville, Catasauqua, former Western Salisbury Fire Chief Steven Schneider, Upper Macungie Fire Marshal Grant Grim, as well as Cetronia Ambulance Corps personnel.

Schneider, now a fire instructor with Bucks County Community College and a state fire instructor, was joined in the training exercise by Carl Weiss, a fellow fire instructor at BCCC.

To say a house fire produces thick, dark smoke is an understatement.

I literally could not see my hand in front of my face, yet the volunteer firefighters were entering the home safely and setting up a pulley system for the rescue without untoward incident.

Without the steady hand and guidance of Grant Grim, I would have definitely fallen flat on my face.

In the dead of the night, if a fire were to break out in a home, seconds count.

The sooner a sleeping family is alerted to a fire by a bedroom smoke alarm, the sooner they can escape from their smoke-filled home to safety.

Working bedroom smoke alarms are a must.

For more information, go to the NFPA’s Fire Prevention Week website, firepreventionweek.org.

Deb Palmieri

editor

Parkland Press

Northwestern Press