Macomb firefighters spread safety message

MACOMB TOWNSHIP — What is the best way to get a message across? Take out an ad? Hold a demonstration? Go door to door and hope your word catches on?

For the Macomb Township Fire Department, nothing is off the table when it comes to spreading the word about fire safety. Fire prevention week ran from Oct. 8-14 this year, but the department refuses to limit itself to only one week of fire prevention outreach in October.

“We start at the beginning of October, and we’ll run right through the end of October/beginning of November,” said Macomb Township Fire Chief Robert Phillips. “Pretty much every day of the week (is) visiting schools to get everyone covered that would like us to visit.”

School visits are the heart of the Macomb Township Fire Department’s fire safety outreach effort.

“We get to every elementary school and daycare in the township,” said Macomb Township Fire Inspector Vince Pozzuoli. “For five days a week, we go from one school to the next and we teach kids about fire safety. We watch a video. We dress up in gear to show them that we’re not scary, so they can see what we look like if we had to come into their house in full turnout gear, on air (and) how we sound. We teach the foundations for having a family meeting place, where everybody can go outside and meet in front not too far away so when the fire department arrives, we get to see the family there and find out who’s missing, if anyone.”

Even with outreach efforts taking place across the entire month, the department kicked off the traditional prevention week with its open house on Oct. 8. Activities at Station 3 included getting to use firefighting equipment, going through a house fire simulator and a demonstration of hydraulic extrication tools on a donated Ford Raptor.

Demonstrations have not been limited to the open house. Senior citizens got a chance to learn how and when to use fire extinguishers Oct. 10, even getting to extinguish a controlled fire themselves.

“To use a fire extinguisher, we use the acronym PASS: pull the pin, aim at the base of the fire, squeeze the handle and sweep,” Pozzuoli said. “In today’s modern world, fires double in size every 30 seconds or faster. You’re trying to explain to somebody if they have a chair on fire, in 30 seconds now you have two chairs, in a minute you have four chairs. If your fire extinguisher is not readily available … the time passes fast, and you may be trapped and unable to get out. Have them handy, readily available and know how to use them.”

While every house may not have a fire extinguisher, all Michigan homes are required to have a smoke/carbon monoxide detector. To make sure Macomb Township residents had working detectors, the department teamed up with Domino’s Pizza at 21 Mile and Card roads to send Pozzuoli out with delivery drivers, inspecting and replacing smoke detectors.

“It was nice to see the residents want to make sure they had the proper safety (equipment) for themselves and their family,” Pozzuoli said. “It was important to find ones that were not working and make sure they had something that was going to be there when they needed it. We got to leave knowing they were safe.”

Residents in need of a detector or those who would like their detectors checked can contact the Fire Department at (586) 286-0027 for a free detector.

“Fire safety is important to us,” Pozzuoli said. “We do it all year long. If somebody needs batteries or smoke detectors, we do it 365 days a year. We want to make sure everybody has them. We have a good partnership with the state of Michigan to get smoke detectors and campaign to make sure everybody has a working smoke detector in every sleeping room and outside of every sleeping room.”