Students enjoy breakfast at the fire house in observance of National Fire Prevention Week

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[October 10, 2015]  LINCOLN - On Monday, the Lincoln Fire Department hosted a pancake and sausage breakfast with the two third grade classes from Central School as their special guests.

The breakfast is a part of the fire department's annual observance of National Fire Prevention Week. In Lincoln the department actually does a month-long observance. The first event was held on Sunday and was a fire truck parade through Lincoln that included fire trucks and engines from throughout the county plus Mason City.

The second event is the breakfast. Each year a third grade class from a different school in Lincoln is selected for the morning long event at the firehouse.



The day begins with pancakes prepared by Claude VanFossan and sausages cooked by the firefighters. This year the two classes totaled just over 40 students. The kids were accompanied to the firehouse by their principal, Kelly Bogdanic, class teachers Donita Biggs and Ren Anweiler; two teachers’ aides, Amy Tabor and Abby Smith; and one parent chaperone, Mark Tippett.



After breakfast the kids were split into three groups. Corporal Ben Roland took the first group on a tour of the upstairs living and office area of the department.



Lieutenant Todd Koehler took the second group outside to learn the difference between a fire truck and a fire engine.



The third group stayed on the ground floor of the station where firefighters Andy Dexter and Robert Wood demonstrated how a firefighter puts on his gear before going to fight a fire. The tours and lessons continued until all three groups had experienced everything the firefighters wanted to share with them.



Inspector Tim Aper led “class time” discussions about fire safety and answered several questions from the students. Assistant Chief Darren Coffey also talked to the students.



This year the theme for the Fire Prevention and Safety Week is “Hear the beep where you sleep.” According to national statistics, the majority of all home fires begin between the hours of 11 p.m. and 7 a.m., while most families are sleeping. The goal of Prevention Week this year is to encourage the installation of smoke detectors in or at least near all bedrooms in the home.

As is typical of the annual breakfast, part of the morning was spent talking about smoke detectors and when to change the batteries. Other discussions included what to do when the alarm on the smoke detector goes off. Kids talked about rolling out of bed and crawling on the floor, how to check a door before opening it, and what to do if the door feels hot, which is keep it closed and go to a window and call for help.

At the end of the day, the kids were invited outside to have some fun with the department firehouse. The fire house has windows with flames showing in them. The kids were allowed to, with the help of firefighter Robert Wood, use the large fire house to knock the flames down from the windows.

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Other firefighters who were on hand to help with the breakfast included Chief Mark Miller and Lieutenant Ty Johnson.

In addition to the firefighters, retired Fire Chief Bill Haak stopped and spent much of the morning at the firehouse. Haak served on the Lincoln Fire Department for 28 years, with eight of those being as the Chief. He retired in 1997.



Also dropping in on the class Monday morning was newly appointed Acting Mayor Marty Neitzel. Neitzel addressed the group briefly then stayed for a while, lending a hand with cutting pancakes into bite sized pieces for some of the students who needed the help.

In addition to the parade on Sunday and the breakfast on Monday, the city fire department will have several other activities for area students this month.

The department hosted a fire prevention poster contest and recently announced the winners. One student each was chosen from kindergarten, first, second, and third grades. The winners will get a ride to school in a fire truck with the first ride being today (Tuesday) for kindergartener Jocia Daniels.



The winner for this year includes Jocia, whose mother is Flicia Daniels. Jocia is a student at Zion Lutheran School.



The first grade winner is Kate Farnam. Kate is the daughter of Craig and Denise Farnam and is also a student at Zion Lutheran School.



Calvin Aukamp, son of Bret and Sally Aukamp of Middletown, is the winner of the second grade class. Calvin is a student at Carrol Catholic.



The third grade winner is Sydney Loeffler. Sydney’s parents are James and Natalie Loeffler, and she attends Washington-Monroe School.

The four winners were selected from a total of 249 entries this year.
 


In addition to the rides to school, the firefighters will also be paying visits to each of the elementary schools inside the Lincoln city limits. At each school, the Department will give presentations very similar to what was given at the breakfast on Monday.

Once again this year, Lincoln businesses and Lincoln Daily News joined forces to create and print a supply of coloring books for the fire department to distribute to children in the community. The coloring books will be given out at the school visits this month, with extras left over that may be given out at other times throughout the next year. Thanks to the generous support of many local businesses, new books are printed each year and are provided at no cost to the Lincoln Fire Department.

[Nila Smith]

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