Firefighter outlines safety practices for Fire Prevention Week

FORT ST. JOHN, B.C. — This year’s Fire Prevention Week campaign focused on safely dealing with lithium-ion batteries, according to a local firefighter.

Fire Prevention Week is an annual awareness campaign that focuses on teaching the fundamentals of fire safety to people, especially children.

This year’s campaign ran from October 5th to 11th. To discuss the initiative, Fort St. John fire prevention officer Alyn Stobbe appeared on the October 17th episode of This Week in the Peace.

Stobbe said many firefighters attend local elementary schools during Fire Prevention Week, specifically targeting kids in the third grade.

“Their age is just prime for soaking in the good stuff, so to speak,” Stobbe said. “So we go to grade three [classrooms] every year — at this time of year, specifically — and we teach them on the themes that’s picked.”

The theme is selected annually by the National Fire Prevention Association. Stobbe said this year’s theme was called “Charge into Fire Safety,” with a focus on lithium-ion batteries — the kind used in smartphones, laptops and other similar devices.

According to Stobbe, if lithium-ion batteries aren’t charged properly, they can present a serious risk for electrical fires.

“If you’re charging your phone, for example, you want to leave it on a hard surface,” he said. “You don’t want to tuck it under your pillow or something soft that might be insulating it. You want the heat to dissipate into these cold, hard surfaces like your countertop.”

Stobbe also encouraged people to be careful to avoid dropping devices powered by lithium-ion batteries, as damaging them could lead to a phenomenon called “thermal runaway” — a dangerous reaction that can lead to fires and explosions.

When asked how to go about safely disposing of old lithium-ion batteries and devices that contain them, Stobbe urged residents to bring them to a recycling depot like FSJ Return It on 93rd Avenue.

Stobbe also urges local students to fill out a form provided to them during Fire Prevention Week for a chance to win a pizza party for their school.

“Last year was our first year [running the pizza party contest],” Stobbe said. “Bert Ambrose [Elementary] won it, Pizza Hut was our partner, and I think we did 80 large pizzas, we brought them to the school and it was so fun.”

The winning school will be decided in November. 

Anyone with questions about lithium-ion batteries and the risks they can pose, or who wants to learn more about fire prevention in general, can contact the Fort St. John Fire Department at 250-785-4333 and ask to speak with someone from the fire prevention department.

To view the full interview with Stobbe, look below.