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PHOTO BY LAURIE ANDERSON
Kids get ready to crawl to safety during a demonstration with a fog machine.
PHOTO BY LAURIE ANDERSON
A princess, a dinosaur and Sparky the Fire Dog exit the house safely.
PHOTO BY LAURIE ANDERSON
North Hays County Fire Rescue staff, including Sparky, greet Trunk or Treat participants.
Dressed in his Minion costume, Beaux examines his prize skeleton.
PHOTO BY LAURIE ANDERSON
Bruno and Blanca check out the goodies on the H-E-B table.
PHOTO BY LAURIE ANDERSON
During the final costume contest of the night, “Moana” was the clear favorite.
PHOTO BY LAURIE ANDERSON
The Eiserer family takes a group photo by the fire truck.
PHOTO BY LAURIE ANDERSON
Jack shows off his very on-theme costume.
PHOTO BY LAURIE ANDERSON
William, accompanied by dad Stephen Daem, was the crowd favorite in the first costume contest of the night.
North Hays County Fire and Rescue (NHCFR) held its annual Trunk or Treat Halloween event at Station 74 near Belterra on Oct. 31. A steady stream of families came through to get treats, see the trucks, participate in the costume contest and even learn a little about fire safety.
Jeanine Southall, NHCFR community outreach coordinator, said October is the organization’s busiest month. It includes Fire Prevention Week, and so they have activities all month long around fire safety. One of their education programs involves an inflatable house that they take to the area elementary schools.
“We do an all day program that covers pre-K through third grades. We teach them basic fire safety - stop drop and roll, how to call 911, and what’s an emergency,” Southall said. “We show them what a firefighter looks like in bunker gear, and they go by and high five them. We don’t want them to run from us if they see us because we can look kind of scary.”
Normally, the students can go through the house and look at the different areas for fire safety lessons. At Trunk or Treat, NHCFR added a fog machine and a smoke alarm to their lesson. When the firefighter turned on the fog and the smoke alarm went off, the kids would crawl through the house and out to safety.
“We have them go home and talk to their families about questions like, hey, do we have a meeting place?” Southall said. “Do we have smoke alarms in our house? Do they work?”
Southall said they also encourage the kids to learn their parents phone numbers and names.
“Some of the little kids don’t know that,” Southall said. ”They just know them as mom and dad.”
Other organizations that participated in or donated to the event included North Hays EMS, Hays County Sheriff’s Office, Hays County ESD 6 Board of Commissioners, Freedom Canines, Driftwood Volunteer Fire Department, Henley Volunteer Fire Department, Schwartz Realtors, Beanz Creamz, H-E-B Nutty Brown, JuiceLand Belterra and Smiles of Austin.
