Nothing was on fire, but Carolina blue fire trucks from the Chapel Hill Fire Department lined the sidewalk in Polk Place Thursday.
Stovetop cooking demonstrations and fire extinguisher lessons were only part of what students got when they stopped by the National Campus Fire Safety Fair. Carolina Dining Services and members of the Greek community at UNC also served up ice cream to students who passed through Polk Place between classes.
The event was the fair’s fourth year educating students and reminding them of the fire safety rules they learned in elementary school. Many people have memories of crawling through demonstration smokehouses or watching puppet shows about fire safety.
But elementary school was a long time ago. When students come to college and live on their own, fire safety needs to be revisited, said Chapel Hill Fire Marshal Matt Lawrence.
“For a lot of these kids, it could very likely be the first time that they’ve been away from home and had to think about fire safety for themselves,” Lawrence said.
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