By Cathy Higgins
BAY MINETTE, Ala. — When students headed back to school in Bay Minette last week, they may have noticed something unusual — the presence of the Bay Minette Fire Department.
“On the first day of school, we got out into the community by displaying banners near the schools that said, ‘Slow down. School is back in session,’” Bay Minette Fire Chief Phil Bryars said in an interview.
He explained that the intention was to remind drivers to be cautious when driving in a school zone.
But that’s not the only scholastic role the department will have this year. Instead, a reading contest is under way at Bay Minette Elementary, Intermediate and Middle schools.
“The child who reads the most books between now and Christmas will win a ride to school on a fire truck,” Bryars said, explaining that the contest will be repeated the second half of the school year.
Although school has barely started, Bryars has received positive feedback from the community.
“I’ve gotten lots and lots of comments on Facebook,” he said. “I taught a class on fire safety the other day, and one of the people there came up to me and said, ‘Man, I think it’s a good thing that y’all are doing.’”
The department isn’t limiting its community involvement to schools. Instead, Bryars is planning to hold a variety of small neighborhood events to remind residents of the free smoke-detector program that is funded through a grant from Wal-Mart and additional donations.
The fire chief explained that the program enables the department to purchase and install smoke detectors in homes at no cost to the resident. It’s a task Bryars said he and his task are happy to perform.
“Any time we respond to a non-fire-related call, we ask if you have a smoke detector,” Bryars said. “If you don’t, we install one.”
He said they do so because it has been proven that smoke detectors save lives.
“We installed one for a family that lived in a trailer park,” Bryars said. “Within a month of us installing that smoke detector, there was a fire. But because of that smoke detector, the father, mother and children got out of the house safely.”
That’s the department’s motivation behind the upcoming neighborhood events designed to spotlight the program.
“We’ll cook hot dogs and hamburgers and give away popcorn and have activities and give away fire helmets,” he said.
