Fire Prevention Week
time to boost home safety

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Star-Bulletin staff
The Honolulu Fire Department wants families to follow the theme for Fire Prevention Week, tomorrow to next Saturday, which is "Team Up for Fire Safety."

HFD is asking people to install and test smoke alarms, practice home escape plans and identify and eliminate fire hazards around the home.

But HFD spokesman Capt. Richard Soo said fire prevention should be 365 days a year.

"The bottom line is, if fire strikes your residence, even if no one is hurt, all the memorabilia, the photos are destroyed," Soo said.

"For instance, if a teddy bear is burned because of an inquisitive child playing with a match or a lighter ... that can't be replaced. That's what hurts firefighters the most."

Last year, HFD responded to 28,308 alarms and 2,912 fires. Three people died in fires in 2001, HFD officials said.

President Calvin Coolidge signed the proclamation for National Fire Prevention Week 77 years ago, noting that 15,000 lives were lost in 1924.

At the time, Coolidge said, "This waste results from the conditions which justify a sense of shame and horror, for the greater part of it could and ought to be prevented."