On Friday, October 13th, firefighters spent the day at the Hamburg Elementary school to talk with the students about fire safety and to demonstrate some of the skills that the firefighters use to rescue people.

The day began with Chief Hatt talking to the students about fire safety. The students then moved outside for a rope rescue demonstration. Firefighters rappelled down from the roof of the school to the amazement of the students. Firefighters also demonstrated how they can tie themselves off mid-way down the rope if they needed to perform work at that location. They also showed how one firefighter can assist another if they got into trouble. Firefighter Bechtel tried off midway down the building and Lieutenant Trubilla rappelled down and performed a pick-off maneuver, bringing both firefighters safely to the ground on his rope.

For the final evolution firefighters showed how to secure an injured victim in a stokes basket and raised the basket using a "haul-system", and lowered the basket using a "rack".

Firefighters also took the time to eat lunch with some of the students. Firefighters spread out through the cafeteria and sat at tables talking to the students about fire safety and answering their questions.

A study performed by a Boston news station revealed some alarming information. It turns out that the sleep patterns of young children are different than those of adults. As a result, children often do not wake up to the sound of a smoke detector in "alarm" mode. Their is a new type of smoke detector on the market that uses the recorded sound of a parent's voice as the alarm signal. When hearing the sound of their parents voice, many children were awakened within seconds. Click on the link below to view the video report. The clip often begins with a short advertisement, but it is worth the wait to view the video segment. The Hamburg Fire Company does not endorse any one brand or manufacturer. However, we do find the results alarming and encourage parents to do their own research to find companies that manufacture smoke alarms that use voice recordings to wake children. Click on the view full story link to see the link for the video report and a link for Signal One Safety.

• New smoke detector investigation video
• Signal One Safety

It's not just a catch phrase, smoke detectors really do save lives.

You should have a working smoke detector on each level of your residence. It is also inportant to have smoke detectors outside of sleeping areas.

Remeber to change the batteries in your smoke detector (and Carbon Monoxide detertors) every 6 months. A good time to change the batteries is when you need to change the clocks for daylight savings time. This occurs every 6 months (April and October) and is an easy way to remeber when it's time to change your batteries.

On October 14th firefighters from the Hamburg Fire Company took time off from their full time jobs to visit the local elementary schools for fire prevention week.

Firefighters visited Tilden Elementary in the morning and showed the Kindergarten through 2nd graders what a fully dressed firefighter looks like, and explained that this is not someone who is there to help them and that they should not be afraid of the firemen, even though they are wearing an air pack. They also explained to the children what they should do if they were ever caught in a burning building. Firefighters also talked to the children about the dangers of playing with matches and cigarette lighters. The students then got a chance to tour the trucks and look at all of the difference tools and hoses that they carry.

The highlight of the day for many of the children was when the firefighters surprised them by coming into the cafeteria later in the day and sat with them to eat lunch. The children couldn't stop talking about the fire trucks and all of the things that they had learned.

After visiting Tilden in the morning, the firefighters moved to the State Street Elementary in the afternoon for a fire extinguisher demonstration. This demonstration included a live fire excercise inwhich firefighters explained how to properly use a fire extinguisher to put out a fire.

After the demonstration a few of the teachers got a chance to try their hand at putting the fire out. The students were impressed with their teachers firefighting skills.