Fire Safety

Kids and families from across Franklin County are invited to celebrate YMCA Healthy Kids Day on Saturday, April 28, from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m at the Waynesboro Area YMCA. This year, more than 1,900 YMCAs will be participating in YMCA Healthy Kids Day nationwide. YMCA Healthy Kids Day activities at the Waynesboro Area YMCA's day-long event include dance demonstrations, tours of fire trucks and ambulances, the MedSTAR helicopter and swimming, crafts, story time and an obstacle course.

Second-graders at Salem Avenue Elementary recently spent two days at Children's Village, off Mount Aetna Road. One day was spent learning about fire safety. The students learned the importance of having working smoke detectors, how to call 911 in an emergency, and to “stop, drop and roll” if on fire. They also toured a burned-out home to see the damage heat and fire can do. The next day was spent learning how to be safe in the community, including how to use crosswalks safely and not to talk with strangers.

The Washington County Commissioners decided Tuesday not to require fire sprinkler systems in new single-family or two-family homes as part of a building code update. The commissioners voted 4-1 to adopt the updated versions of several building-related codes with a local amendment removing those sprinkler requirements, which are new in the 2009 edition of the International Residential Code. As adopted, the codes require fire sprinklers only in apartments, townhomes and commercial buildings.

HAGERSTOWN -- Before Alonso Jimenez went to Children's Village of Washington County, his family hadn't thought much about fire safety. Their home had two smoke detectors. No one considered whether they worked or not. Thankfully, Alonso does his homework. Children's Village of Washington County is a nonprofit life safety education center. All second-grade classes in Washington County Public Schools visit the center for a day of learning about fire, traffic, water, pedestrian and other personal safety skills from uniformed firefighters and police officers.

Q: What's the No. 1 senior safety concern of the Washington County Sheriff's Department? A: Con artists, according to Cpl. Jim Holsinger. As weather warms up, unsolicited home improvement offers appear. Some of these are legitimate, but some, he said, are from scammers. "The key is unsolicited. If they contact you, that's a tell-tale sign," Holsinger said. Homeowners might be open to saving money by hiring contractors who say they'll work for a low, low price. But Holsinger said, "We tell everyone, if something sounds too good to be true, it probably is. " He said scammers sometimes complete half the job, then jack up the price.

HAGERSTOWN -- Sixteen girls from Girls Inc. moved from station to station at the Spring into Safety event Wednesday afternoon, learning about bicycle safety, nutrition and fire safety. Their fire safety lesson in the Walmart parking lot at Centre at Hagerstown came inside a "Safety House," a trailer set up like a house to teach children about fire dangers that can lurk in a home. "Firefighter Rick is very, very scared of these things," Hagerstown Fire Department firefighter Rick Conrad told the girls as he turned their attention to a space heater in a living room area.

It happens all too often. Someone is cooking in the kitchen. Maybe the stove is too hot under the frying pan. Maybe the cook steps away "just for a second. " But the next thing you know, there's a small flame, and someone screams. OK, now freeze the scene. It's at this point, Stoyan Russell said, that things can take one of two courses. Lose your head, and you might have a tragedy unfolding. Keep your head, and you might have a minor incident. "When there's a fire, people don't think.

WILLIAMSPORT - The Williamsport Volunteer Fire and EMS Co. responded to more than 100 fire and EMS calls in the Williamsport area in October, according to the monthly report. The calls consisted mostly of emergency calls for medical assistance, and for the fire department, house fires, auto accidents and brush fires. On Sept. 6, Washington County Department of Emergency Services placed in service a paramedic chase vehicle based out of Clear Spring Volunteer Ambulance Service.

HAGERSTOWN -- Finishing homework always is important, but the homework assignment 8-year-old Alonso Jimenez completed last year for Children's Village of Washington County just might have saved his family. At Children's Village, second-graders learn about 911, "stranger danger" and fire safety. Part of Alonso's homework last year was to evaluate the smoke alarm protection in his family's Mont Valla Avenue home in Hagerstown. "They were broken," Alonso said last week of the home's smoke alarms.

MARTINSBURG, W.Va. -- Fire safety and building code violations were found during inspections of the Martinsburg Union Rescue Mission in May and have prompted the operators of the homeless shelter to delay asking permission to build a new 78-bed mission. "The inspections' results underscore the mission's need for a new residential building," attorney Hoy Shingleton said in a news release announcing the delay until September. "The mission's buildings are very old and very costly to maintain.