Thousands of students may be stuck at home because of the pandemic, but that is not stopping Firefighter Lisa and the WGFC from doing fire prevention education this year.

Known across the area and the Commonwealth for its pro-active and successful fire safety education effort, the West Grove Fire Company routinely reaches thousands of school-age children with fire safety education programs each October through school visits and in-person presentations. Unfortunately, that is not possible this year during the COVID-19 pandemic, with most school students on home-based virtual learning.

Not to be deterred, WGFC's fire safety school program coordinator Lisa Glass (known to students and families as "Firefighter Lisa") turned to virtual learning and produced a 28-minute video that covers fire safety topics. The video, now available on the home page of the fire company's website, features topics like:

-Smoke Detectors
-Setting a Family Meeting Place
-What is 9-1-1
-Emergencies
-Stop, Drop, and Roll
-Fire Gear
-Fire Truck and Tools

Through the power of video, Lisa patiently explains these critical fire safety topics to students using techniques and simple language proven effective for students of all ages -- with a particular focus on pre-school, elementary and middle-school students. On the video, Firefighter Lisa covers a range of topics and then is joined by Firefighter Rob (Rob Kloss), who provides an overview of the fire truck, along with the tools carried on West Grove's fire engines.

Recognizing the importance of these topics as part of the school curriculum, the WGFC has also released a teacher's Fire Prevention Lesson Plan to complement the new video. Teachers can use the lesson plan to structure how they present fire prevention this year, with guidance on topics covered, how to help students with vocabulary, helping kids understand the concepts, and how to structure discussions.

While the fire company hopes all of the schools will adopt the lesson plan and show the video, parents can use these same materials to help children learn these important fire safety topics. The new video and lesson plan are available on the WGFC website by clicking here: https://www.wgfc.org/content/front/FirePrevention2020.cfm