By Amanda Estes

Staff Writer    

    Maine children are playing with fire and statistics show they’re not the only ones getting burned.

    According to the Maine State Fire Marshal’s Office,
in 2004, fire departments statewide responded to 377 incidents in which
juveniles were somehow involved in the ignition of a fire. That year,
the incidents resulted in more than $11 million in property loss.

    A Fire Prevention and Safety grant, recently awarded
to Southern Maine Community College (SMCC) by the Federal Emergency
Management Agency (FEMA), will provide the seed money for a statewide
initiative to spread fire safety awareness and provide intervention and
support services for at risk juveniles and their families.

    The $360,974 grant will strengthen juvenile fire
safety collaborations in Androscoggin County, Cumberland County,
Kennebec County and York County, while creating partnerships in four
more pilot counties or regions.

    Richard Taylor, a senior planning and research
analyst with the Maine State Fire Marshal’s Office, pointed to the York
County Fire Setter Intervention Program as an effective model of a
collaboration between the fire service, law enforcement and the mental
health community.

    “We need to build the capacity to recreate the model
you have working well in York [County] and recreate it around the
state,” he said.

    Taylor said the SMCC grant will help implement a
program that will continue on even after a firefighter leaves the
service.

    Steve Willis, Director of Public Safety Education
and Leadership Initiatives at SMCC, said the grant provides funds to
hire a full-time program director, a support person and a data
assistant to work with the Fire Marshal’s Office.  

    With more than 100 full-time students enrolled in
SMCC’s Fire Science Technology program and a Maine Fire Training and
Education Department providing hands on firefighter training, Willis
said the college is a “logical partner” in the initiative.

    Willis said the grant “activities will be training
hundreds of folks statewide in a couple of fire safety skill sets.” For
example, fire safety education programs such as play safe! be safe! and
the National Fire Protection Agency’s injury prevention program, Risk
Watch, will be used to spread awareness in schools, from preschool to
middle school. The education initiative will partner schools with local
fire departments, county and state fire organizations and local and
county juvenile fire safety groups.

    The response and intervention component of the grant
is focused on children who are involved in some form of fire play,
whether they are doing it out of curiosity or with the intent to cause
harm to a person or property. The fire department will make a referral
to a response team, which could be comprised of social and child
protective services, mental health professionals and law enforcement.
 

    “Whatever the child needs, we’ll have the resources
available for the child and the family,” said Willis.  

     Pam Tourangeau, Director of York County’s Fire
Setter Intervention Program and a licensed clinical professional
counselor, said about 95 percent of the referrals that come in from
local fire departments go through some sort of fire education program,
which is geared developmentally for children between the ages of three
and 17.

    “We do everything we can to try and gear it toward
what the child really needs and we require the parent attend,” she
said. “It’s reinforcement at home if the parent is getting the
education along with the child.”

    Education programs for younger children might
include developing and practicing an escape plan, locating smoke
detectors in a building and practicing stop, drop and roll. Programs
for adolescents are geared toward good decision making and learning
about Maine’s arson laws.

    Tourangeau, who will serve as interim project
director for the new Maine Juvenile Fire Safety program, stressed
juveniles involved in the ignition of fires is not just a problem for
the fire department or the police department, but rather it is a
problem that communities as a whole must address.