James W. Whitmire, the fire marshal for the Chattanooga Fire DepartmentEvelyn Carreno stepped to the front of a small crowd of teenagers Thursday night, music pounding in the background as she raised her arm and pulled the trigger – on a fire extinguisher simulator.
She aimed at a small screen about four feet away, where a bright-orange digital fire was raging. Slowly, she swept the extinguisher’s green beam across the screen and “put out” the fire. The crowd of teenagers erupted into cheers, and with a broad grin Carreno accepted her free T-shirt from the Chattanooga Fire Department.
“That was pretty cool,” Carreno, 18, said. “It sounded like a video game from Chuck E. Cheese’s. It was exciting.”
The Chattanooga Fire Department is working to educate incoming University of Tennessee at Chattanooga freshmen on fire safety and prevention, Chattanooga Fire Marshal James Whitmire said. The department has been holding hourlong classes and demonstrations twice a week at UTC since June. The goal of the sessions is to help students know what to do if they encounter a fire while at school.
“A lot of students are leaving their home setting where mom and dad are taking care of them, and they are getting out on their own,” he said. “We felt like this was a great time to approach them on fire safety.”