Children get fired-up about safety
Children get fired-up about safety
By: Mary Beth Garrison
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Posted by editor Tue Nov 30, 1999 00:00:00 PST
Viewed 937 times
0 responses 0 comments Local elementary school children were taught that careless acts like a lit cigarette flicked into the weeds, an overheated car pulled onto the shoulder of a road, or a campfire smoldering into the night can give birth to devastating wildfires. They put their concerns on paper during the first Greater Tehachapi Fire Safe Council Poster Contest.
More than 2,200 local children met Smokey Bear, Sparky the Fire Dog and local fire personnel from the city of Tehachapi, county of Kern and the Bureau of Land Management as they learned about the danger of fire.
The education, however, went beyond the school assemblies and classroom discussions as nearly 350 students accepted the challenge to create a poster warning the community about the dangers of fire. Eighteen students, in grades Kindergarten through fifth, were awarded prizes for their creativity and inspiration; spreading the message that “Fire Safety Begins with Me.”
Members of the GTFSC awarded the honors during school assemblies at Cummings Valley, Golden Hills and Tompkins Elementary schools late last week. Grand Prize winner Anthony Dornay, a fourth-grade student from Cummings Valley Elementary School, will have his artwork made into a poster and a billboard.
The posters will be put up at local businesses; the billboard will be posted in early June at the intersection of Tehachapi Boulevard and Pauley Street.
Debbie Santiago, fire mitigation and education specialist for the Bureau of Land Management, facilitated the assemblies and poster contest.
“This was an excellent effort for Tehachapi area schools,” she said. “The entries were creative with messages that were right on target. I believe educating children is the cornerstone to educating the general public. Children not only go home and share fire safety messages with their families but they grow up with an important respect for the danger of fire.”
The poster contest is just one of the community outreach projects of the Greater Tehachapi Fire Safe Council. The “Living with Fire” tabloid inserted into last week’s Tehachapi News was another project for this volunteer organization. The Council is the driving force behind water dip sites designed to provide helicopter units with an immediate source of water as well.
The Council also provides speakers for local organizations. This year’s message is on the creation of fire safe defensible space on private property. The presentation includes a professionally produced DVD featuring a local property being prepared for successful fire pre-suppression.
Chipper Days are another project of your local council, whereby, residents can bring small tree and brush clippings to designated locations to be ground into mulch, free-of-charge.
Tehachapi area communities also have a 10-person fire crew, funded by the Kern County Fire Department, to assist the effort. When not assigned to fire fighting, this crew’s focus is hazardous fuels removal projects such as brushing roads and clearing flammable vegetation from public and private lands.
For more information on the GTFSC, or to request a speaker for a club or organization, contact the Tehachapi City Fire Department at 822-2230.
The Council meets the second Wednesday of the month at the Golden Hills Community Services District building at the corner of Woodford-Tehachapi Road and Old Town Road at 2 p.m. Interested residents are welcome.
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