Larry Youngblood, a deputy with the State Fire Marshal’s Office, said the safety house incorporates several basic fire safety tips while impressing upon youngsters how to avoid or, if need be, survive a house fire.
“We started this in 1999 ... and decided to go out to the communities and see if there was any interest in this sort of thing,” Youngblood said. “Since then, more than 152,000 children have toured the safety house.”
The safety house is a mock-up of a trailer home which also features several dos and don’ts concerning fire prevention.
“It’s very interactive,” Youngblood said. “We let the kids see some of the common fire hazards and we let them tell us how to fix the problems.”
Youngblood said statistics bear out the need for fire safety instruction.
In 2006, there were approximately 20,000 structure fires in Texas and only 21 percent of those homes had a working smoke alarm, Youngblood said.
“In one trailer home fire in Houston ... five people died,” he said. “The home had a smoke alarm, but it didn’t have a battery. If those folks had bought a $1.20 battery for their alarm, they’d probably be alive today.”
Aside from teaching the value of alarms, officials also drill children on a variety of other safety tips, such as not to leave candles burning overnight or the importance of having a rendezvous point after evacuating a burning home.
“If you don’t establish a meeting place and you can’t find your child after you evacuate the house, you automatically assume they’re still in the house, so you endanger your life by going back into the burning house,” Youngblood said. “We’ve seen too many instances where people incorrectly assumed family members were still in a house and died themselves when they went back into the home.”
Youngblood said it is difficult to statistically gauge how successful the program is, but he doesn’t doubt its effectiveness.
“From my point of view, we’ve saved a lot of lives,” he said. “And if we only save one child’s life through something they learned here, we’ve done a good job.”
Overall, more than 1,000 people visited the health fair this year, according to Debbye ValVerde, executive director of the chamber.
“We were really excited to have such popular features as the fire safety house,” ValVerde said. “And we definitely want to thank all of corporate sponsors for making the health fair possible.”
Contact Staff Writer Steve Reagan at 263-7331, ext. 234 or by e-mail at
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