Fire and life safety education for children isn’t what it used to be. Neffsville Fire Company, like many others, is often requested to visit schools and day cares within the community. Many times the school’s expectations were met, as firefighters would give a quick lecture on not playing with matches and then move on to the “fun stuff,” like touching the fire gear, and looking at the engine.

The new fire prevention team at Neffsville no longer runs their program this way. It is our experience that when the lesson is conducted in this manner, sometimes the teachers do not even take it seriously. The purpose of these visitations was so that kids would learn something valuable, and that just wasn't happening.

The new program is focused more on learning. Children listen to a book, and are asked a lot of questions. They are shown examples of how to stop, drop, and roll, and how to crawl out of a house. Participation by the class is encouraged, rather than just having the children sit and listen. Children learn not to be afraid of a firefighter in gear and what to do if there is a fire. The engines and tools are still shown to the classes, but the old style show-and-tell type lesson has been done away with.