What’s it like to go to the open house day of the local fire department?
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Wrapped around the light poles, we had seen posters for the open house day of the local fire department for quite some time. Thus, we decided to go there on a nice and sunny Saturday afternoon. They had lots of cool activities, and the kids got to see fire engines and hold saws and hoses. Leander was even allowed to extinguish a small fire with a fire extinguisher! (No pics of that, alas, because mommy had to stand in line for his face painting…)
My son loves fire engines — sometimes, one of them comes around the neighbor hood, lets children climb inside, and volunteers educate the kids and sing songs. Lyons Cub is the proud owner of Fireman Sam radios, which he uses to call mommy when she is in a different room. He didn’t bring them today, though (it would have been too noisy, anyway, because it was crammed and there was live music).
There was a high tower that was used for fire extinguishing exercises. Smoke (well, it was white instead of black) emerged from a window, and a fire engine with glaring sirens approached. The personnel explained to the visitors how they used their fire hoses. They extended the ladder and ended up “saving” a guy standing on a balcony.
Lyons Cub was taught by a fire woman how to wear a helmet and hold a saw:
He was really proud 🙂
There was a lottery (we didn’t win anything, though), food stands, and a bouncy castle:
In addition, the children could ride little plastic fire engines around a prepared track. Some young guys from the youth volunteer fire fighters helped push them.
Leander’s favorite activity was to watch smoke filling a room inside a wooden toy house. A young volunteer fire fighter explained to the children that in case of fire, they always had to close the doors in a house, so the other rooms would not fill with smoke. This way, people in other rooms still had time to flee without having to inhale the smoke. The youth was able to fill different rooms with smoke, like the baby’s room, grandma’s room, and so on, and showed the children how to open the windows and the entrance door. Lyons Cub was really fascinated.
Mommy stood in line for two (!!) hours for Lyons Cub to get a Spiderman face paint.
In the meantime, he went to the bouncy castle or played with a few kindergarten friends he met.
In the end, waiting that long was totally worth while, because the artist did a really good job:
After we had gone home and had had dinner and it was time to sleep, we had to put a towel under his head, so he could leave on his face paint without wiping it onto his pillow, because he wanted to show it to his cousins the next day at our barbecue party 😉