VGCC Franklin Campus Day Care Students Learn Fire Safety

Young students at the child day care center at Vance-Granville Community College’s Franklin County Campus recently observed Fire Prevention Week (Oct. 7-13). Engineer Dalton West of the Louisburg Fire Department visited the campus on Oct. 9. West discussed basic fire safety with the children, warned them against playing with matches, and showed them his fire truck and equipment.

Fire Prevention Week was established to commemorate the Great Chicago Fire, the tragic October 1871 conflagration that killed more than 250 people, left 100,000 homeless, destroyed more than 17,400 structures and burned more than 2,000 acres. In 1920, President Woodrow Wilson issued the first National Fire Prevention Day proclamation, and since 1922, Fire Prevention Week has been observed on the Sunday through Saturday period in which Oct. 9 falls. According to the National Archives and Records Administration’s Library Information Center, Fire Prevention Week is the longest running public health and safety observance on record.