Crime & Safety

Tewksbury Fire Department Joins Sparky's Wish List

Fire Department invites community partners to support life-saving Fire Safety Education.

(Editor's note:To protect lives through community-based fire-safety education, the invites its neighbors to join in support of Sparky’s Wish List™. Sparky’s Wish List:

Partnering for Fire-Safe Communities, a project of the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA), brings Tewksbury businesses and the community together with local fire departments to fund life-saving fire safety educational materials.

“Firefighters train to stay sharp with basic skills and new technologies alike. Sharing with the community the need to plan for the “what-if” scenarios is an important part of our efforts to help residents stay sharp with basic skills and new safety technologies in their homes,” “Our first line of protection is educating the community. Sparky’s Wish List will allow us to work with Tewksbury community members to provide these critical educational
resources.”

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The wish list website (www.sparkyswishlist.org/give) allows fire departments to create a tailored profile page, identifying the specific materials needed for local fire education programs. Residents, businesses and others can then find the pages by searching sparkyswishlist.org/Give by city and/or state to choose items to purchase from the list. Materials will be sent directly to the fire department.

"Fire safety education saves lives, but with current budget pressures, it’s hard for many departments to pay for a range of educational materials,” said Jim Shannon, president of NFPA, the coordinator of the program. “Sparky’s Wish List: Partnering for Fire-Safe Communities is designed to help close the gap between what fire departments can afford and what they need to educate on fire safety.”

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Every year, fire departments in the United States respond to more than 350,000 home fires resulting in at least 2,500 deaths and more than 12,000 injuries.

In Tewksbury alone, from July 1, 2011 to July 1, 2012, the Tewksbury Fire Department responded to 98 fires. Twenty-eight of those fires were in residential occupancies; a number of those were preventable.

Our goal is to reduce the number of fires in the community by continuing to provide effective community education and outreach programs. Residents and businesses can help by visiting www.sparkyswishlist.org/give and enter Tewksbury, MA or Wish List # 2984 to make a donation of materials that have been specifically requested by our S.A.F.E. Program Coordinator.

 


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