Teaching children fire safety

To conduct efficient fire drill evacuations and to increase the likelihood that children would make the right decisions with respect to fire safety and evacuation they must have knowledge of the principles and hazards of fire. Fire drills alone do not provide fire safety education [1], and setting out procedures to follow without an understanding of the fire problem does not give children ownership or independence in the process. Without ownership, there is no responsibility. Fire safety evacuation training must incorporate general fire safety education. NFPA 1035 defines fire and life safety education as: 

“Comprehensive community fire and injury prevention programs designed to eliminate or mitigate situations that endanger lives, health, property or the environment” [2].

This can be achieved through targeted education in the home, at school, or in society [3]. Kafry [4] found a commonality that children who were identified as having experience in deliberate fire-setting were forbidden by their parents from experimenting with matches, and that children who were permitted to light matches under supervision had greater fire safety skills and knowledge. This would suggest that the “Don’t play with matches” instruction is counterproductive and would be better served with the “use matches safely under supervision” advice.

Target age group

Typically, fire assumes increased interest for a child between the age of 3 and 6 [5]. Kafry [4] indicated from a surveyed sample of 99 children, 18% of the children that had experience with fire, had set fires at the age of three or younger. The same author suggested that intensive fire prevention education should be provided to pre-school children, in the age range of 3 to 5 years old.

This is consistent with the findings of Block et al. [5], which suggest that fire safety intervention programmes should be instigated from an early age given the fact that by the age of 5, a high percentage of children have an interest in fire and have previously experimented with it. The same study also examined gender difference, suggesting that boys were more interested in fire and were more likely to be involved in the ignition of fires, than girls. It also indicated that girls were more fearful of fire and less likely to engage in fire experimentation.

Dougherty et al. [6] surveyed primary school educators on burn-risk behaviours and fire safety education. The results of the survey suggest a mean age of 6.1 years old when children would begin fire experimentation. The same paper indicated a mean age of 7.3 years as the age at which children would benefit most from the inclusion of fire safety in the school curriculum.

McConnell et al. [3] undertook a study to evaluate a pre-school education programme called “Kid Safe”, which was developed by the Oklahoma City Fire Department in conjunction with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). The programme consisted of 20-minute fire safety lessons daily over 18 weeks, totalling 30 hours of tuition. The study was conducted in ten child-care centres, which involved children in the age range of 3 to 5 years old. Six of the centres presented the programme to their children, and the remaining four centres were the control group. A test of fire safety knowledge was given to children before the commencement of the programme and a subsequent test upon completion of the programme.

 The results presented improvements in fire safety knowledge for the three age groups 3, 4 and 5. The most notable result was that the three-year-old group demonstrated the most significant gain in fire safety knowledge, with a 62% improvement. The 4 and 5 year olds presented a 39% and 30% improvement respectively. Also, 3 year olds who received training as part of the programme, scored higher than the 5 years olds in the control group. The researchers did not hypothesise the improvement of the 3-year-olds, and the validity of their involvement in the study was questioned during the conceptual stage, as it was thought their ability to profit from the lessons would be limited. This finding suggests that fire safety education should commence at pre-school age, however, the program would be time-consuming and would be seen as unfeasible for most Authorities to implement to the community due to practical resource implications. The same test was given in pre and post testing, and pupils were exposed to it during training. Therefore, the validity of the results on fire safety knowledge retention could be questioned as children may have become familiar with the test.

In Iceland, a fire safety programme is targeted at 5 year olds in the last year of pre-school [7]. This involves an annual visit by two Fire Service personnel. The children are introduced to fire safety risks using pictures and demonstration and learn about emergency exits, exit signs and the importance of keeping exits clear. They are shown how to evacuate the daycare centre should an emergency occur. The name of the programme is “Flame and Ember” who are fictional characters that are fire brigade helpers.

In Ireland, since 2006 a primary school fire safety programme managed by Local Authorities has been undertaken which involves third class or (approximately) 9-year-old children. Annually, personnel from local Fire Brigades provide a fire safety presentation to the third class of each school using the “Safety Team” packs as a training tool. The “safety team” concept was developed by Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service and involves action characters for children to relate to, which correspond to fire safety actions or fire hazards. The programme involves a homework element where children are required to undertake a home fire safety checklist, which is signed by parents and returned to their teachers. It is anticipated that this interaction will present any fire safety issues and their solutions together in the same place, at the same time, increasing the likelihood that they are resolved at source [8].

The current author is involved in the management of this programme within the relevant County area involving the rollout annually to 175 no. primary schools. The following limitations are suggested:

1.         An evaluation process is not a component of the programme and, therefore, the direct or indirect benefits of the programme are not measurable and have not been quantified. A prior and post-test questionnaire given to a sample of pupils would indicate the direct benefits with respect to fire safety knowledge retained.

2.         The home safety checklist currently asks the question “Do you have a smoke alarm and test it every Monday?” This is a yes or no question and poses two questions. When no is indicated it could be for either question. If this question was revised it could allow Fire Authorities to identify households that do not have a working smoke detector.

3.         The literature discussed earlier would suggest that children’s interest in fire starts at an early stage of a child’s development and that fire safety knowledge can be gained from as young as 3 years old [3-6]. In this regard, the programme should be widened to commence at a younger age group, in addition to nine-year-olds.

4.         Learning benefits from reinforcement [9, 10] and, therefore, a school fire safety programme must be an ongoing activity and not a single school visit.

5.         The programme is centred on residential fire safety and does not refer to school fire safety and evacuation. A small element of this could be included and fire drills could be organised to coincide with Fire Brigade visits.

Method

In Section 5.1 of the NFPA Fire Protection Handbook [10], Kirtley discusses the principles and techniques of fire safety education. Distinctions are made by the author between education, learning and information. Education is the process of teaching, training, or instructing a new skill. Education is defined in Webster’s dictionary as “activities that impart knowledge or skill”. However, education may not improve fire safety knowledge or skill. To improve fire safety knowledge learning must occur. Learning is defined by Webster’s dictionary as “the acquisition of knowledge or skill”. For learning to occur, knowledge or skill is acquired, which results in a change of behaviour or attitude [10]. Learning cannot take place without change. Information is the facts, knowledge, and data required for education and learning.

Behavioural skills training (BST) is a training method that comprises of four components: instructions, modelling, rehearsal, and feedback. It is reported in the literature as a successful method of teaching young children certain life protection skills [11, 12]. Using BST Randall and Jones [13] undertook a study on “Teaching children fire safety skills”, which involved fifty-two children in the age range of 7 to 10 years old, with a mean age of 8.5 years old. The study using BST, undertook three separate methods of reinforcement, and carried out tests to assess fire knowledge before, immediately following, and three months after the date of the training. The results were compared to an untrained control group.

In each method, phase one was the same - children were taught fire safety skills through instruction, modelling and reinforcement. Phase two varied for each method as below:

a)                 elaborative rehearsal; Phase 2 - Giving children the reasons for the importance of each step, having children repeat the reasons, and allowing them to ask questions about the material;

b)                 rehearsal-plus; Phase 2 – Teaching children how to pair self-instructional statements with fire-related stimuli to show them how to reduce their fire-related fears;

c)                 behavioural rehearsal; Phase 2 – Reciting the steps aloud, first as a group and then individually.

At the pre-test stage, the four groups did not present any notable differences. At post-testing, the elaborate rehearsal group was found to have significantly more knowledge on fire safety skills than the other three groups. The follow up testing three months after the training also found that the elaborate rehearsal group maintained the most fire safety skills and knowledge, however, each of the groups showed an increase when compared to pre-testing except for the non-trained control group. While the testing method was socially validated by firefighters and expert judges, the training method of using psychology graduates to train small groups of 3 to 4 children for an hour over three consecutive days is not practical or feasible for a community resilience programme. Therefore, the study does not provide any great insight into the practical method of teaching children fire safety skills within the wider community.

A study by Randall and Jones [13] suggests that to obtain fire safety skills and knowledge children must understand the problem that fire presents and the rationalisation for fire safety measures. This is consistent with Dougherty et al. [6], where a survey of educators indicated that child fire-setting behaviour could be reduced by explaining the medical and social consequence of burns.

Similarly to Randall and Jones [13], Williams and Jones [14] studied methods of teaching children fire safety skills and the impact of knowledge on children’s fear of fire. Forty-eight children within the age range of 7.6 to 10.5 years old were chosen and randomly separated into four groups: fire safety/fear reduction group, fire safety group, attention control group, and non-trained control group. Each of the groups was subjected to pre-testing, post-testing immediately following the training, and follow up testing five months after the training was undertaken.

The fire safety/fear reduction group were taught behavioural steps and asked to make self-control statements when making decisions in response to specific fire fear stimuli. For example, they were taught to say “I should calm down as I know what to do in a fire”. This could be considered as positive self-talk with the aim of reducing fire fear and anxiety. The fire safety group were taught behavioural steps in response to specific fear stimuli. They were asked to verbalise each of the steps. Unlike the first group, there were no accompanying statements. The attention control group engaged in trainer-led discussions on fire occurrences, drew fire related pictures, and discussed fire prevention. No behavioural skills were taught, similar to traditional fire safety programmes for children. The non-trained control group received no training but were tested at the same intervals.

The results at post-testing found that the fire safety/fear reduction and fire safety groups gained significant knowledge in fire safety skills when compared to the two control groups. Interestingly the attention control group did not record gains in fire safety knowledge and were comparable to the untrained control group.

As an intervention programme, Kolko compared two methods of teaching / treating children, identified as having a fire-setting history and made comparisons to a traditional fire-fighter home visit programme [15]. In all, 54 children within the age range of 5 to 13 year old participated and each had a verified case of fire-setting in the three months prior to selection.

The methods of intervention were cognitive behavioural treatment and fire safety education, which was conducted by mental health therapists and firefighter educators respectively. The treatment sessions were the same in both cases (1-hour session weekly for 8 weeks) and pre-testing, post-testing immediately following, and follow-up testing (12 months later) was undertaken for each group. Upon follow-up testing, all three groups reported a reduction in fire play or fire-setting incidents with the cognitive behavioural group showing a greater reduction and the firefighter home visit group the least reduction.

Conclusion

Children see the world through different eyes compared to an adult, therefore, procedures that are developed and appropriate for adults may not be suitable or may require a different means of training and monitoring. Primary school teachers must be considered experts in imparting knowledge to young children, however, teachers themselves must receive appropriate fire safety training, so they may create learning of this important topic. A curriculum based programme, which is periodic over the school lifetime of a child would be most appropriate. This should commence at pre-school age and continue through to early teenage years.

REFERENCES                                                                                          

[1]         M. Horasan and D. Bruck, "Investigation of a behavioural response model for fire emergency situations in secondary schools," pp. 715-726: ISBN 1-886279-00-4.

[2]         A. National Fire Protection, NFPA 1035: Standard for professional qualifications for public fire and life safety educator. National Fire Protection Association, 2000.

[3]         C. F. McConnell, F. C. Leeming, and W. O. Dwyer, "Evaluation of a fire‐safety training program for preschool children," Journal of Community Psychology, vol. 24, no. 3, pp. 213-227, 1996.

[4]         D. Kafry, "Playing with matches: Children and fire," in Fires and Human Behaviour, D. Canter, Ed.: John Wiley & Sons Chichester, England, 1980, pp. 47-61.

[5]         J. H. Block, "Fire and Children: Learning Survival Skills," Forest Service, Department of Agriculture, Berkley, California1976.

[6]         J. Dougherty, P. Pucci, M. R. Hemmila, W. L. Wahl, S. C. Wang, and S. Arbabi, "Survey of primary school educators regarding burn-risk behaviors and fire-safety education," Burns, vol. 33, no. 4, pp. 472-476, 2007.

[7]         A. R. Larusdottir, A. Dederichs, and D. Nilsson, "Evacuation of Children: Focusing on daycare centers and elementary schools," Ph.D, , Department of Civil Engineering, Technical University of Denmark, 2013.

[8]         (2006). Primary Schools Fire Safety Programme (Safety Team).

[9]         L. Satyen, M. Barnett, and A. Sosa, "Effectiveness of fire safety education in primary school children," in 3rd international symposium on  Human Behaviour in Fire, Belfast, Northern Ireland, 2004, pp. 339-346: Interscience Communications.

[10]       E. Kirtley, "Fire and Life Safety Education," in Fire Protection Handbook, A. E. Cote, Ed. 20th ed.: National Fire Protection Association, 2008.

[11]       B. M. Johnson, R. G. Miltenberger, K. Egemo‐Helm, C. M. Jostad, C. Flessner, and B. Gatheridge, "Evaluation of behavioral skills training for teaching abduction‐prevention skills to young children," Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, vol. 38, no. 1, pp. 67-78, 2005.

[12]       B. J. Gatheridge et al., "Comparison of two programs to teach firearm injury prevention skills to 6-and 7-year-old children," Pediatrics, vol. 114, no. 3, pp. e294-e299, 2004.

[13]       J. Randall and R. T. Jones, "Teaching children fire safety skills," Fire technology, vol. 29, no. 3, pp. 268-280, 1993.

[14]       C. E. Williams and R. T. Jones, "Impact of self-instructions on response maintenance and children's fear of fire," Journal of Clinical Child Psychology, vol. 18, no. 1, pp. 84-89, 1989.

[15]       D. J. Kolko, "Efficacy of cognitive-behavioral treatment and fire safety education for children who set fires: initial and follow-up outcomes," Journal of child psychology and psychiatry, vol. 42, no. 03, pp. 359-369, 2001.