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Grant provides training trailer
By Elise Franco
Canfield
Knowing how to use a fire extinguisher is a basic skill that Deputy Chief Don Hutchison said every person should know.
To teach that skill to as many residents as possible, the Cardinal Joint Fire District purchased a $72,000 digital fire-safety training trailer, which was 95 percent funded through a Fire Act Grant from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Hutchison said.
He said the grant was awarded in August 2009, and the trailer was delivered in August 2010. Since then, the deputy chief said more than 800 people in Canfield, Green and Austintown have been educated using the equipment.
“People are less informed about fire safety than what we’d like,” he said. “Our whole goal is to get people through the trailer and educate them.”
Inside the trailer is a kitchen-fire scenario, where the closed oven catches fire, spreads to a stove-top burner and to a nearby trash can. Fire is simulated with orange flickering lights as smoke and heat fill the room.
Hutchison said the lesson is to properly work the fire extinguisher and put out the simulated fire.
“It’s as lifelike as you can get to a real fire,” he said. “Everyone should know how to do this, because every home will have at least one fire in a person’s lifetime.”
Monica Egolf, a preschool teacher at Canfield United Methodist Church, said she and her co-workers were happy to go through the training Thursday.
“It’s absolutely necessary for the children’s safety,” she said. “In the event of a fire emergency, we’d be prepared.”
Egolf said she’s used a fire extinguisher before and thinks every person should know how one operates.
Christina Kaleda, also a preschool teacher at the church, said that without the training, she probably wouldn’t know how to react properly in a fire at the school.
“It’s not only for the safety for the kids, but for the safety of the staff, too,” she said.
Hutchison said since August, the department has used the trailer to train the custodial staffs in the Canfield School District and Mahoning County Career and Technical Center, as well as students from Canfield high school and middle school and several private businesses.
He said Green Township Fire Department and Austintown Fire Department will use the trailer in their school district in coming months.
“Our goal is to educate more than 1,000 by the end of this year,” Hutchison said.