THE Jamaica Fire Brigade (JFB) is maintaining its focus on children for Fire and Life Safety Awareness Week from October 21 to 27.

The week is being observed under the theme ‘Mek Wi Fix It… Make Fire Safety and OUR Children our Priority!’.

Acting assistant commissioner and Chief Fire Prevention Officer Julian Davis-Buckle said the emphasis on children is in keeping with the JFB’s mandate of ‘Saving Lives and Protecting Property’.

She told JIS News in an interview that since 2009, a total of 88 children have lost their lives to fires, including the two major events in 2018 at the Walker’s Place of Safety and at a house in Olympic Gardens, St Andrew.

She noted that structural fires and related deaths tend to be more frequent in the rainy periods when persons remain indoors and when children are at home on holiday.

The JFB is sensitising children to take charge of their own safety through the ‘Mek Wi Fix It’ school tour, which started in September 2018. The school visits will continue during Fire Safety Week.

“The tour is focused on students in early-childhood and secondary institutions. Visits will also be made to various children’s homes,” Davis-Buckle said.

“Through the tour, we go into the schools and have fire-safety talks with our children. We include skits, music and giveaways. During the tour, we set up fire-safety corners with charts and posters bearing fire-safety information, in each of these schools,” she informed.

She noted that “the visits usually happen each Friday, but we will be visiting schools islandwide throughout Fire Safety Week. The tour is designed to empower our children with life-safety skills that can be harnessed when the threat of fire exists”.

Fire and Life Safety Awareness Week will close with a firefighters’ ball to commemorate 147 years of the JFB’s service to Jamaica.