National Fire Prevention Week is this week, October 9 through the 15, and the Crookston Fire Department is celebrating the 100th anniversary of the week with the theme “Fire Won’t Wait. Plan Your Escape.” To focus on having families and the community making fire escape plans for their homes so they can escape it quickly before a fire gets to the point they cannot exit their homes due to the amount of smoke.
Throughout the week, the Fire Department will visit local public and private schools to teach the students in grades 1-6 about creating a fire escape for their families and other precautions they should take in the instance of a fire. “We set up times with the schools prior to the Fire Prevention Week so that we can go in and educate the children,” Crookston Firefighter Brian Hanson explained. “It goes leaps and bounds throughout the homes as the children come home, and they talk to their parents about it. From the parent’s perspective, it’s good too because it puts it fresh in their minds. Fire safety is something that’s needed in our community to keep everyone safe.” Throughout the week, the department will be at the Crookston Cathedral School on Wednesday, October 12, the Highland Elementary School on Thursday, October 13, and the Our Savior’s Lutheran Church school on Friday, October 14.
To finish the week off, the Fire Department is opening their department for their annual Open House on Saturday, October 15, from 10:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. and is inviting families inside and outside the community to come and have a great time at the Fire Hall. The department will have many events throughout the day for families to try and see the station, such as a tour of the station and its equipment with the firefighters. The children can try on firefighting gear, receive door prizes, receive thermal imager demonstrations, and weather depending, the department will have its favorite Ladder Truck Bucket Ride to carry people into the air to see the community from up high. Other events at the Open House include door prizes, fire safety brochures being handed out, and a chance to meet your Crookston firefighters and Sparky the Fire Dog. Families can also sign up for free Fire Safety Inspections with the department to come and see if all of their smoke detectors and other measures are up to par. “People that come to the Fire House will sign up with their names and phone numbers, and we can call them and set up a date when it’s available for them,” Brian Hanson explained. “If they work nights or days, we’ll make it work so that we can get into the house and make sure everything is up to par.”
Also, at the Open House, the Minnesota Masonic Lodge Kids ID program will be there to gather information about the children in the community ages 0-18 to help law enforcement prepare for a missing person case. “This will take fingerprints, DNA samples, pictures, and all other data necessary and be put on a thumb drive that can be given to law enforcement in case somebody should go missing, or they have to start looking for an elderly patient,” Minnesota Masonic Crookston Lodge 141 Treasurer Lester Wilkens explained. “It gives law enforcement everything they need, plus for identification later, God forbid that it happens, the pictures that are taken each year are better than fingerprints, so that and the DNA will be able to help find the child and older person.” The process is free of charge, and any information will be saved on a computer created by the FBI that will be given back to the parents and kept confidential to the families, not by Masonic or any other organization.
The Crookston Fire Department encourages the public to attend its free Open House this Saturday, October 15. The department will also visit the three local elementary schools this week to teach them about Fire safety. The schedule for when the department will finish each school can be seen below-
Wednesday, October 12: Cathedral School
Thursday, October 13: Highland Elementary School
Friday, October 14: Our Saviors Lutheran Church School.
