On Wednesday 25th January, Years 3 and 4 were treated to a visit from the Fire Brigade to talk about fire safety.
A fire crew arrrived from Potters Bar Fire Station and explained about the job they did, how to keep safe if your house caught fire, what to do if you caught fire and how important it was not to play with fire or make prank calls.
The children were shown the fireman's fire uniform which consisted of heavy steel capped boots, thick padded leggings and a tunic. One fireman put on bis BA - breathing apppartus and everyone thought he sounded like Darth Vader! This equipment helps him to withstand fires of around 600 degrees celcius, although the children learned that a fire can burn at 1000 degrees at ceiling height. John explained what to do if your clothes catch fire and Robyn from Year 3 demonstrated the stop, drop and roll technique.
Attending fires is not the only job that the firemen do, they also attend road trafic accidents and in fact they explained that they are attending more and more of these, where the cause has been the driver texting or using their mobile phone. So each child was told they can tell parents off if they see them using their phone whilst driving - so parents WATCH OUT! They also showed us the 'Jaws of Life' as they are known in America, 'Spreaders', here in England. They are used to prize open crashed cars among other things. These can lift the weight of two fire engines - that's 24 tonnes!
In the summer the firemen said that they attend quite a few fires in woodland, where children have lit fires which have quickly got out of control and spread, so the message was: "Don't set fires and don't play with matches." This includes lighting scented candles at home, unless an adult is present.
Too often the fire crews are also called out on prank calls. This is usually where a child has dialled 999 for no reason. The crew explained that this means they cannot go to a real emergency and people could die, so it is really important that you only call the fire brigade to real emergencies.
The chidlren were really excited to meet the firemen and as an end to the talk the children were allowed to climb in to the fire engine.
