By Karen Hall

Editor

The Fire Safety House, often seen parked at the Lewisburg Fire Department, was at Oak Grove Elementary School Monday, being used to teach fire safety to children.

The house was built by the Columbia Fire Department, which donated it to Lewisburg when they got a grant for a new one.

"We're very pleased with it," said Assistant Fire Chief Jason Davis. "It's an excellent teaching tool."

The firemen who come out to help with the house enjoy it too.

"The guys enjoy this every year," Davis said.

"A lot remember me from kindergarten," added firefighter Wayne Blackwell.

The house wasn't used last year because it needed maintenance, so a lot of the young children haven't seen it.

Nevertheless, children from Laura Ingram's and Karen Carter's classes who came out to the Fire Safety House at 10 a.m. seemed well aware of the basics of fire safety, enthusiastically shouting the answers to Davis's questions.

An amazing amount of education is packed into a child-size space. Entering the house, children are in the kitchen. There's a stove, with pots and pans, so they can see which way the handles should be turned. There's also a space heater so firefighters can demonstrate how to keep it away from things that might catch fire.

There's even a phone for dialing 911, and a firefighter, hiding in a cubbyhole in the house, pretends to be a 911 operator so the children can practice answering the operator's questions.

There are smoke alarms that go off in the house, and harmless artificial smoke is pumped in through vents so children can get down and practice crawling to safety underneath the smoke.

Some of the doors can be made to feel hot, so children can practice checking a door -- always with the back of the hand, because if you burn the palm of your hand it will be harder to crawl to safety -- before they open it.

Upstairs in the Fire Safety House is a bedroom, with a window opening onto a balcony. If they can't leave their bedroom in case of a fire, children are taught to open the window and throw out a pillow or a stuffed animal. Thus, as firefighters circle the house, they will see an indication there is a child trapped upstairs.

The visit to the house ends with the children climbing down a ladder from the balcony outside the bedroom window, and running to their safe meeting place -- in this case the mailbox which is set up a little way from the house.

"What day is Thursday?" asked Davis when the children were all safe outside the house.

"Halloween!" they yelled.

"Who's going to bring me some candy?" Davis asked. "Friday, I'll be looking for some candy."