Fire Safety—Everyone Every Day
By David
Stein
Flames,
smoke, death! These are all things that
you probably think of when you hear the word ‘fire.’ All these things could be prevented if no one
ever played with matches or fires in fireplaces. But unfortunately, people do, and they have
to pay the price. Hundreds of thousands
of acres are ruined each year from forest fires and other manmade fires. These fires do major damage to forests,
houses, property, and most importantly loss of life! This is why we have to step it up a notch and
start preventing fires with as much effort as we can. Things that we have to do to prevent fires
include: don’t play with matches, keep matches away from young children, blow
out candles when you are not home, and always keep a screen on fireplaces. Also, make sure your chimney is cleaned every
year and make sure your dryer is shut off before you leave the house. We should not be playing with matches,
period; it’s just not a cool or okay thing to do. If you accidentally light a match, you should
shake it or blow it out right away.
There might be bad consequences if you do not. Also, playing with lighted candles and
lighters is just as dangerous, if not even more so.
Another
way to prevent serious fires is to make sure a campfire that you have made is
fully doused and stirred with dirt before you move on to another campsite. If you do not do that, something may happen
(such as sparks jumping from hot ashes) and start a huge fire. Something that may have the same outcome is
leaving a candle burning when you leave your house. The candle might fall over and ignite
something, which may then spread throughout the house. If you smoke (which is a bad idea to begin
with), make sure you throw the cigarette butts in a safe place. And no,
the ground is not a safe place to throw them!
Fire, that is what you’ll see if you throw a red-hot cigarette butt on
the ground.
If
by chance, a fire starts in your house or outside in your yard, you should
always have a fire extinguisher handy as a precaution to keep a small fire from
becoming a huge, deadly fire. Another
way to prevent fires is for parent to talk to their kids about what to do, and
what not to do for fire safety. They
should know not only how to prevent fires, but what to do if a fire does
start. And kids, if you have any
questions about this fire prevention, make sure you ask your parents.
Flames,
smoke, death—FIRE—hopefully this will never happen to you and be “burned” into
your memory forever!
Ms. Biercevicz’s Class - Mohegan School