6th Annual Louisville Fire Academy underway

LOUISVILLE, Miss. (WCBI) – They’re skills the Louisville Fire Department says you’re never too young to learn; fire and life safety.

“I like to learn about fire. I might be a firefighter when I grow up,” said Jr. Academy Cadet Zoe Ainsworth.

Though that would be ideal, the Louisville Fire Department is mainly looking to equip its latest round of cadets with basic life saving skills.

“We teach them about fire safety. We teach them about smoke alarms. We teach them about exit drills. We teach them about calling 911. We teach them a little bit about fire extinguishers. We kind of show them what we have to go through every day,” said Fire & Life Safety Instructor Detrick Sanders.

Sanders coordinates the academy each year. He said it’s important for the kids to experience other emergency responders too.

“Like yesterday, they had the Wildlife Fisheries and Parks to teach them about gun and water safety. Tomorrow, we’ll have the helicopter and Aircare. Thursday will have a rollover simulator, and we have our drug dog to come and talk with them,” said Sanders.

It’s Amiya Stone’s first time at the academy. She said her parents stress the importance of not playing with fire, but she still learned a thing or two about staying safe.

“Go to your safe place. If there is a fire in the house, you need to practice about where your safe places and you need to check your am your fire thing every month,” said Stone.

The kids got hands on training with certified fire fighters as well as volunteers.

Danielle Mitchell is a teacher at Fair Elementary School and is excited to help some of her students outside the classroom.

“It’s also important for them to come out and see me in a different light and just learning the basic fire techniques. I’ve been having a blast working with the kids and I think they’ve learned a lot listening to them, answering questions,” say Mitchell.

Sanders says they hope the cadets take away the importance of practicing fire safety.

“Smaller kids, if something was to happen they wouldn’t know what to do a lot of them would want to hide. We try to bring them in and let them have a little fun and teach them stuff that kind of helps them out. Maybe they can go back and tell their parents what they learned, and they’ll start doing things with them,” said Sanders.

The cadets graduate Friday with a ceremony and completion certificates.