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Back Mountain fire companies conduct fire safety classes at Dallas Elementary School

Dallas Elementary School students were treated to a fire prevention/education smokehouse program on October 8 and 9 outside the elementary school.

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Shown relaxing between fire safety classes at the Dallas Elementary School are, from left, Chuck Coolbaugh, Chandra Hunlock, Bruce Biggs, Maureen Oremus, Harry Sweppenheiser, Sean Mullen, Errol O’Brien, Doug Farr and Dodie Coolbaugh. Other firefighters who assisted were Tim Rismondo, Joe Fiorello, and Josh Hilstolsky as well as Dallas Ambulance personnel Justin Swan and Rick Kris.

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Individual classes were greeted and informed about ways to escape a burning building and practice fire drills in their own homes.

The children were then split into small groups with some seeing Franklin Township’s fire engine and its equipment, others looking at and feeling the protective clothing worn by firefighters to keep them safe while others started the tour of the Smokehouse. This learning tool on loan from the Nanticoke Fire Department is a two-story mock home equipped with living room, kitchen and bedroom. The school children were escorted through and asked to point out fire and safety hazards.

The highlight of the tour was the students encountering a smoke-filled bedroom where they learned how to get out by staying low and crawling under the toxic smoke and gases of a real fire. This realistic simulation teaches children to stay calm, feel for heat, have two escape routes and quickly exit a room where visibility is poor at best.

Maureen Oremus, assistant chief of the Franklin Twp. Volunteer Fire Co., coordinated the event and was assisted by firefighters from Franklin Twp., Dallas, Kunkle, Trucksville and Jackson Twp.