WILBRAHAM – The Wilbraham Fire Department will once again host is annual open house on Oct. 13.

The open house will take place from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the main fire station at 2770 Boston Road, rain or shine.

Wilbraham fire personnel will be on hand to offering demonstrations and tours of the department’s headquarters and equipment. The department’s newest addition, Ladder 1, will be on display. This new apparatus, a 107-foot aerial ladder truck, was recently delivered to the Fire Department on Sept. 14.

As they have done in the past, Papa Ginos, located on Boston Road in Wilbraham, will provide complimentary food.  

The open house is conducted as a celebration of the National Fire Protection Association’s (NFPA) Fire Prevention Week. October is also National Fire Prevention Month.

This year’s theme for Fire Prevention Week, “Look. Listen. Learn. Be aware – fire can happen anywhere,” encourages the public to be aware of places where fires can start, listen for smoke detectors, and learn two ways out of each room in your home in order to escape in the event of a fire.

“People take safety for granted and are not aware of the risk of fire,” Lorraine Carli, NFPA vice president of Outreach and Advocacy, said. “Paying attention to your surroundings, looking for available exits in the event of a fire or other emergency, and taking the smoke alarm seriously if it sounds can make a potentially life-saving difference in a fire or other emergency situation.”

The NFPA reports that four out of every five fire-related deaths in the U.S. take place at home. Efforts such as Fire Prevention Week are especially important as the fire death rate has actually increased by 10 percent since 1980, according to the NFPA’s 2016 statistics.
 “While we’ve made significant progress in preventing home fires from happening, these statistics show that there’s still much more work to do when it comes to teaching people how to protect themselves in the event of one, and why advance planning is so critically important,” Carli added.
For more information on the Wilbraham Fire Department’s open house, visit Facebook event page at https://www.facebook.com/events/678535002504415/ or contact the department at their non-emergency number, 596-3122.

For more information on Fire Prevention Week, visit www.firepreventionweek.org.