Since 1986, the Mt. Lebanon Fire Department has conducted an annual Fire & Life Safety Education Program in which firefighters visit local classrooms to teach children in kindergarten through 5th grade about fire safety. Literally thousands of children have learned to “Stop! Drop! and Roll!,” how to call 9-1-1, and the importance of having a smoke detector–lessons they will carry with them throughout their lives.
On Friday, April 26, 2013, the Mt. Lebanon Fire Department will hit a major milestone in this program–its 10,000th class.
The 10,000th class will be presented to fourth graders at Markham Elementary School and will focus on how to react and safely escape a house or apartment fire. During the class, children will enter the fire department’s fire safety house (mounted on a trailer for easy transport), which is equipped to simulate a real house fire–screaming smoke detectors, live theatrical smoke and an escape ladder–to lend hands-on realism to the event.
This particular class is not the last class in the program–the students will receive a final class next year when they are in fifth grade–but the class is a culmination of the skills the students have learned since beginning the twice-yearly classes in kindergarten or preschool. Skills put to the test during this class include “stay low and go” (to remind students to crawl low under toxic smoke or when hearing the smoke detector), knowing when to use a primary or secondary escape route, the importance of having a family meeting place, and calling 9-1-1.
“Mt. Lebanon Fire Department’s fire and life safety education program is unique in several ways,” says Lt. Michael Stohner. “It formally began in 1986 as a dedicated partnership between the school district and the fire department with classes worked into the curriculum. It is much broader in scope than most programs, with students receiving 14 to 15 different lessons from the fire department over the course of the program.”
Classes are taught almost every day of the school year–sometimes as many as seven a day–with a full-time firefighter assigned to the program. Private elementary schools and most preschools in Mt. Lebanon participate as well. More information about the program is available at mtlfd.org/kids.
The Mt. Lebanon Fire Department is a combination fire department consisting of 17 career and 45 volunteer firefighters who provide fire and rescue services to the residents of Mt. Lebanon, a six-square-mile suburb just south of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The department serves 33,000 residents, responds to approximately 1,800 calls annually, and participates in over 1,000 hours of community-related activities. In 2012, Mt. Lebanon Fire Department became an Internationally Accredited Agency through the Commission on Fire Accreditation International (CFAI).
