The Dauphin Fire Department has a couple events this week to mark Fire Prevention Week, a week promoted by the National Fire Protection Association to raise awareness about fire safety.
Cam Abrey, Dauphin's Fire Chief, said the theme of this year's Fire Prevention Week makes a lot of sense, as it's an increasing safety concern in recent years.
"This particular year, the theme is related to lithium batteries and safe charging, so that being a recent thing that has popped up in the last number of years with increasing fires due to lithium batteries and chargers, [the National Fire Protection Association has] made that our focus, to spread the message," said Abrey.
Abrey has a few tips for making sure you safety charge anything you might own with lithium batteries that you might not think of, but just make sense.
"Use the chargers that actually came with it. We know that you can go online and buy replacement chargers at a less expensive cost, but they don't follow the same safety protocols necessarily as what the manufacturer puts out...make sure that when you are charging your devices, it's on a hard, flat surface. Charging your cell phones or your tablets, or anything like that, on top of your bed or under a pillow or anything, these devices, the battery starts to heat up, and it can ignite a fire," said Abrey.
Throughout the week, the Dauphin Fire Department has a couple events for Fire Prevention Week, including an Open House where you can learn more what they do.
"We'll be having an open house on Wednesday evening during our regular practice if anybody wishes to stop by, get a tour of the trucks or anything like that they're more than welcome to, and then to wrap up fire prevention week, we've partnered with the Dauphin Lions Club, and on Saturday, October 10th, we'll be doing a pancake breakfast at the fire station," said Abrey.
For more information about this year's Fire Prevention Week theme, and related fire safety tips, click here to visit the National Fire Protection Association's website.
