Squirt the Clown brings fire safety message to students

Gary Rieth, of the Maryland Heights Fire District, near St. Louis, Mo., visited children at Holcomb Elementary School on Wednesday, Oct. 30. Rieth was at the school at the invitation of Kenna Story, junior high science teacher and former member of the Kennett Fire Department.

?The kids are good down here,? Rieth said. ?They all seem to have a pretty good time. And they always do, no matter where I go. Most of the time, kids are going to be kids, no matter what.?

Rieth has spent 26 years with the Maryland Heights Fire District, he said. He said that 24 of those 26 years he has been working in public education.

Story met Rieth during a public education class that he was teaching in Columbia, Mo.

Story said that Rieth is very busy working in his area, but, she said, ?He was good enough to come down and talk to the kids. We really appreciate that, because, to get him to come down here, all I have to do is ask.?

Rieth is, however, known to the children as the fire fighting clown, Squirt. As Squirt, Rieth utilizes several fun ways to teach children about fire safety.

To enforce the importance of ?stop, drop and roll,? Rieth picked three teacher volunteers from the audience, and assigned them words made out of foam rubber. One had the word ?stop,? another ?drop? and the last one ?roll.? Squirt mixed the teachers up, and the words, demanding help from the children in the audience to get them in the right order.

Another way Squirt teaches fire safety is through magic. He asks for volunteers to pull handkerchiefs out of a bag. On each handkerchief an important aspect of fire safety is stitched on, ranging in values from ?stop, drop and roll,? to changing batteries in smoke detectors and the importance to have escape plans in the home.

As the handkerchiefs are read and explained, Squirt puts them back into the sack. Then, he finds a magical volunteer from the audience. He asks, ?What is the most important aspect of fire safety??

The magic volunteer reaches in, grabs a handkerchief, but as they pull ? they?re all magically connected!

?That?s because all aspects of fire safety are important,? Rieth said.

He also told the kids the importance of rolling out of bed if they hear the smoke detector go off in the middle of the night.

?The most important thing to remember is not to sit up,? he said. ?Because, if you sit up, you?re likely to inhale smoke. So, instead of sitting up, roll out of bed and onto the floor. If you sleep on the top bunk of a bunk bed, be careful and don?t sit up. Somehow crawl down without doing it.?

Together, Rieth and Story go to South Dakota every year to teach other firefighters how to teach fire safety.

In addition to his role as education specialist, Rieth also drives a ladder truck for the Maryland Heights Fire District.