Bringing Fire Safety to Public Education
What needs attention
- A school safety plan must cover the actual building, hazards, class locations and population rather than copy a generic checklist
- Students need simple actions, while adults need detailed roles and decision authority
- Evacuation routes fail when locked, obstructed, too narrow or dependent on one stair
- Kitchens, laboratories, temporary decorations, electrical loads and combustible roofs require active control
- Attendance and visitor records are essential to accountability at the assembly area
- Drills should test notification, movement, assistance and head count without exposing children to theatrical smoke or unsafe simulations
- Lessons are most durable when repeated and connected with a home escape conversation
Controls that reduce risk
- Put an accurate evacuation map and 112 beside every classroom exit
- Walk each route and alternative route with staff; remove locks, storage and trip hazards
- Check that the alarm is distinct and perceivable in classrooms, washrooms, laboratories and outdoor areas
- Assign named adults to assist pupils who may need help
- Separate cooking fuel and ignition sources from teaching and escape areas
- Maintain current class, staff and visitor registers for head count
- Invite the local fire service to review the plan or support training where available
- Send a short home activity asking families to identify two exits and an outside meeting point
Understand and apply the guidance
Students learn a lot of important things in school, such as general math, English, and science classes. For the benefit of your students, you should also teach them about safety. Fire safety is a big topic that can teach students lessons they can use for the rest of their lives. As school starts and lesson plans are made, making sure to talk about fire safety can help a lot. Every teacher wants to make sure their students are safe, and this is one way to do that.
What Should Be Taught?
Fires can be used for cooking, heating, and lighting, but everyone should also know how dangerous they can be. Fire causes and risks, fire prevention, and how to be ready in case of a fire are all things that can help students learn.
Fire Causes and Risks
Fires are dangerous chemical reactions that should be taken seriously. Students should learn about what starts fires and how dangerous they can be so they can understand how important it is to be safe around fires. They should learn that cooking, heating, lighting, and other uses can also cause fires and should be done in the right way. It can also help to teach your students about the risks in their area and what kinds of fires happen more often.
Fire Prevention
There are always fire risks, whether you are at home or at school. With fire prevention lessons, you can show students at a young age how important it is to stop fires from starting. To stop fires, people should be taught how to grill and have bonfires safely, keep fire systems up-to-date, and even teach others what they’ve learned.
Being Prepared and Staying Safe
It’s important to be ready for a fire no matter where or when it happens. In schools, students need to know where to go and what to do if there is a fire. But they should know not only what to do in school, but also how to be ready at home or in other places outside of school. They can teach other family members at home what they have learned at school.
Teaching tools from NFPA
The NFPA has a lot of tools for people who are in charge of a classroom. These teaching tools are designed to be engaging and informative to help the students learn more about fire safety.
Some of the tools include:
- Fire safety tip visuals
- Lesson plans
- Tool kits
- Educational videos
- Computer programs
With these tools, students can have fun and learn important lessons about how to stay safe. When teachers teach their students lessons that could save their lives, they can be sure that they are making a difference.
Common unsafe practices
- Treating an extinguisher demonstration as the entire school fire programme
- Expecting children to fight a fire or rescue others
- Locking exits or storing furniture and materials in corridors and stairs
- Using lifts during a fire evacuation unless a specifically engineered evacuation system and plan permit it
- Running, pushing, shouting or allowing classes to merge without supervision
- Holding drills without plans for young children or pupils with mobility, sensory, cognitive or medical needs
- Failing to take attendance and report visitors or missing persons
- Re-entering before the fire service or authorised incident commander declares it safe