City readies trailer to teach fire prevention

Deepa Bharath

Local fire officials have tried it all.

Going to classrooms to talk about “stop, drop and roll.”

Hosting open houses.

Putting out fliers about safety tips.

But this time, they believe they’ve nailed it. They’ve found the

ultimate way to teach fire prevention to the public -- children,

teenagers, adults and seniors.

The Costa Mesa Fire Department has a 55-foot mobile classroom, or

what they like to call the Fire Safety Education Trailer. It is a

white trailer painted on the outside with bright red flames. It

houses a model kitchen, bedroom and a presentation room with stadium

seating.

That’s not all. It has smoke machines and even an earthquake kit

to simulate swirling smoke and scary temblors. Add to all this a

Dolby Digital Surround sound system, which drives home the reality of

such unimaginable disasters.

The goal is to educate people in a way they’ll remember, Fire

Chief Jim Ellis said.

“Kids will remember the lessons they’ll learn inside that

trailer,” he said. “It’s all very realistic.”

The $50,000 trailer was made possible by a grant from the Federal

Emergency Management Agency allocated after Sept. 11, 2001, and

matching funds from the city, Ellis said.

The trailer itself came from a company in Florida. But it was fire

prevention specialists Teri Durnall and Cheryl Wills who breathed

life into it, Ellis said.

They decorated the inside of the trailer with firefighting

pictures, set up a kitchen with strategically placed hazards and even

used fire department-theme bed sheets and accessories for the room.

“We’re really excited about this,” Durnall said. “Kids are our

focus because they carry the message home and through their lives.

They’re careful with their homes and their children.”

Wills said the department has also hired an artist to create

children-friendly characters that can be painted on the outside of

the trailer.

“We have Firefighter Bob,” she said. “A story is told to the

children through these drawings even before they get into the

trailer.”

Children or visitors to the trailer will also get to take home

informative brochures, she said.

The trailer will mostly be operated by Durnall and Wills with the

help of firefighters. It will be ready for use by February, Ellis

said. It will also be used in public safety expos, the Citizens Fire

Academy, the Junior Firefighter Program and the Youth Expo at the

Orange County Fairgrounds, to name a few, he said.

“We plan to expand its use as we get more comfortable with it,” he

said. “As we get more requests and more people trained.”

The department has already gotten requests from countywide groups,

but Costa Mesa groups will always get first priority, Ellis said.

“Our goal is prevention,” he said. “We’re here to fight fires and

protect the public. But if we can prevent the fires in the first

place, that’s what we’d like to do.”

* DEEPA BHARATH covers public safety and courts. She may be

reached at (949) 574-4226 or by e-mail at deepa.bharath@ latimes.com.