SAFE

Student Awareness of Fire Education

The S.A.F.E. grant program provides resources for fire departments to teach fire safety education in schools.

The Student Awareness of Fire Education (S.A.F.E.) program provides grants to local fire departments to teach fire and life safety to children in schools. The program teaches students to recognize the dangers of fire and the fire hazards of tobacco products through 23 key fire safety behaviors taught in developmentally appropriate ways. Fire and life safety is easy to combine with math, science, language arts and health or physical education lessons, making it easy to collaborate with school teachers. Since the S.A.F.E. program began in 1996, child fire deaths have dropped significantly in Massachusetts.  In 2021, Massachusetts marked two and a half years without a child fire fatality, the longest period in the Commonwealth's recorded history.

The S.A.F.E. program here at Plainville Fire Department reintroduced the program in 2006 and has grown into a premier program within Massachusetts. We collaborate with our schools with lesson plans that target our communities needs and our sixth grade students graduate with a certification in CPR.

S.A.F.E. is one of two fire and life safety education grant programs available to Massachusetts fire departments. The second program is Senior SAFE, which aims to reduce older adult fire deaths through fire and life safety education.

SENIOR SAFE

The Senior SAFE program, as an extension of the SAFE program, targets fire and life safety education to our elderly community. We provide educational sessions through our collaboration with the Council of Aging, free home safety inspections, assistance with smoke detectors, and the File of Life initiative.