In commemoration of both fire safety week and October as fire safety month, East Point’s Fire Department is doing its share to ensure residents make fire safety a priority.

During fire safety week, Oct. 7 to 13, the city hosted its annual community program, Be Cool About Fire Safety.

According to Renita Shelton, spokesperson for the department, the event was a success.

“[Be Cool About Fire Safety] teaches children the importance of fire safety and prevention,” she said. “This year’s event was attended by over 300 students from schools throughout East Point.”

As a part of the program, students were invited to Fire Station No. 1, 2757 East Point St., where they learned fire safety practices firsthand.

“Children were instructed on fire safety practices through skits and a puppet show in areas including, stop, drop and roll, 911 awareness, candle fire safety, matches are tools not toys and home fire safety.”

The statistics for fire safety provided by the National Fire Protection Association, said Shelton, fuel the department’s mission of “preventing disastrous incidents from occurring and to minimize the damage to life property and the environment.”

“According to their recent statistics, in 2010, one home structure fire was reported every 85 seconds and tragically, most fatal fires kill, on average, one or two people,” said Shelton.

In an act of prevention, East Point’s fire department is being proactive in several ways — sending its fire safety house to schools, festivals and other community events and having firefighters and officers attend monthly neighborhood planning unit meetings.

For the future, the department will focus on being innovative to meet the needs of the community.

“We are always exploring new ways we can be certain we’re communicating best practices and lessons learned,” Shelton said.

“Ideally, a community that is knowledgeable of the do’s and don’ts regarding fire prevention and safety is one that can become a model for other communities.”