A fire official says local farm safety initiatives are helping curb dangerous accidents in Chatham-Kent.
Dave Uitvlugt, station 10 deputy chief with Chatham-Kent Fire & Emergency Services, says these farm fires and accidents are fairly common in Chatham-Kent.
"For this area, they're probably looking at 50-60 fires a year in the rural areas--grass fires, wheat fires, corn stubble fires, in the fall some machinery accidents," says Uitvlugt.
Uitvlugt says events like Chatham-Kent Farm Safety Day, which was held at the University of Guelph Ridgetown Campus on Tuesday, are so important in helping keep these numbers down.
2018 Chatham-Kent Farm Safety Day. July 17, 2018. (Photo by Sarah Cowan Blackburn News Chatham-Kent).
"Public education is very important with the fire service, especially teaching the young ones to call 911 and not to be scared of the fire department," he says.
According to Farm Safety Day Coordinator Cassi Brunsveld, 128 kids attended the event. Brunsveld has been running the event for three years in a row with her sister Angela Vyn.
Brunsveld says the event featured stations about various topics including ATV, grain, railway, electrical, and fire safety.
"Being such a rural community, accidents can happen in the blink of an eye," she says. "So we're raising awareness with the kids and helping them learn young so then they can even point out if mom or dad or grandma or grandma are out on the farm and they see something that might not be very safe, that even they can say it to them."
At the fire safety station, for example, Uitvlugt says kids learned how to handle a small extinguisher to put out a fire, how to escape, and developing a meeting plan.
2018 Chatham-Kent Farm Safety Day. July 17, 2018. (Photo by Sarah Cowan Blackburn News Chatham-Kent).
