Our Cause: Lives Saved



WE SUPPORT THE KEEP KIDS FIRE SAFE FOUNDATION

The Keep Kids Fire Safe® Foundation (established in 2009) is a federally recognized 501(c)(3) non-profit charitable organization dedicated to teaching fire safety knowledge and skills to children and their caregivers based on fire safety research.

Through THEIR programs, safety materials and strategic partnerships, the Keep Kids Fire Safe® Foundation aims to reduce the fire-related deaths and injuries among children.

In addition, the National Center on Health Statistics reports that there has been a consistent decline in child mortality from fire over the past decade. However, hundreds of child deaths from fire continue each year. Children playing with fire accounts for a large portion of child fire deaths; the majority of these occur as result of residential fires. Of fires that resulted in child injuries, an annual average of 90% were residential and those that resulted in child deaths, an annual average of 94% were residential.


According to a report from FEMA's Topical Fire Report Series (Volume 11, Issue 9 / February 2011), children age 4 and younger, are those least able to make their way to safety without help and account for roughly half of all childhood deaths and injuries suffered in fires. In addition, the report states that children younger than 5 made up 52% of the deaths of children younger than 16 in fires in 2007 and comprised of 46% of the injuries that year.



Learning about fire safety can be fun when you learn it with Molly the Fire Safety Dog! Molly is mascot for the Keep Kids Fire Safe Foundation. She loves helping keep children and their caregiver’s fire safe!

With educationally sound programming, based on Oklahoma State University’s Fire Protection Publication’s Fire Safety for Young Children curriculum, the Fire Safety Dogs have reached millions of children and their caregivers and have helped reduce fire related deaths and injuries for almost ten years. With nine “saves” (helping save the lives of seven children and 2 adults in actual fire related situations), Molly and the Fire Safety Dogs before her have quite the experience under their collars.


LIVES SAVED 

Five year old Angelica shared this story with Firefighter Dayna Hilton, "Firefighter Dayna~ I was in bed under the 'cobers' and the smoke came. I crawled out of bed and crawled low, just like Sparkles [the Fire Safety Dog] showed me to. I said, 'C'mon daddy, you have to get on the floor and crawl low like Sparkles."

By this time, her dad was disoriented because he had been standing in the smoke filled room. Thankfully, he was able to follow Angelica out of the house. The firefighters later shared with me that Angelica's father followed her out of the home and they said that as soon as he reached the door, the firefighters scooped him up and took him to the hospital (where he spent 7 days~ 4 in ICU). Immediately after they carried him away from the front door, the firefighters stated that the home flashed over (a "flashover" is where the home totally becomes engulfed in flames).

To learn more about this incredible story, click HERE.





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