OCTOBER is Fire Safety Month.
This time each year, I share this important information with families to help ensure their children who are deaf and hard of hearing are protected.
Share these tips with your patients, students, friends, and family too! Don’t wait. 🔥
🔥 TIPS & ADVICE 🚒
🚒 Get in touch with your local fire department to let them know you have a child who is deaf or hard of hearing in your home and where their bedroom is located.
🚒 Contact Smart911.com a free service that allows families to create a safety profile that includes information they want 9-1-1 to have in the event of an emergency.
Smoke Alarms Save Lives But…
Could your child hear or wake up to an alarm?
How about when they are not wearing their hearing devices?
🔥 ACTION STEPS 🚒
🔥 Install fire alarms with strobe lights or vibrating smoke alarms available through most major alarm companies and many home stores.
🔥 Think of ways to communicate to your child that there's a fire.
🔥 Talk about what they should do when the alarm goes off.
🔥 Practice with your child what the vibrating alarm feels like or a strobe light alarm.
🔥 Talk about what to do in case of a fire.
🔥 Plan escape routes ahead of time.
🔥 Set a meeting place outside your home where all family members can meet in case of a fire.
🔥 Check your alarms once a month or more to make sure they are working.
🧯 FIRE SAFETY RESOURCES 🚒
🧯Download the safety tip sheet from the National Fire Protection Association.
🧯 Enroll in a local Premise Alert Program (PAP) with the Fire Department to guide and assist responders in their duties.
🧯 Check out fire safety awareness programs like the Junior Fire Marshal® Training Academy For Families.
🧯Talk about fire safety when playing together and read aloud stories about fire safety with your child with hearing loss.
🐄 CHICAGO FIRE OF 1871 🔥
A little trivia from my home in the suburbs of Chicago. In 1922, the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) named the second week of October Fire Prevention Week in commemoration of the Chicago Fire of 1871. It is also called the Great Chicago Fire and burned from October 8 to October 10, 1871. Legend has it that a cow owned by Mrs. O’Leary kicked over a lantern in a barn and started the fire that left an area of about four miles long and almost a mile wide of the Windy City, in ruins. Reconstruction efforts following the blaze spurred great economic development and population growth here in Chicago.
Pin, Keep, and Share
with families of kids who are deaf and hard of hearing!
