Wilsonville Spokesman Online

Apartments host local police, fire personnel for safety fair

Tualatin Valley Fire and Rescue, Clackamas County Sheriff's Office visit Montebello, Montecino complexes

• By: Josh Kulla  
• Published: 2/25/2010 2:40:06 PM

Photo By: Josh KullaFire Safety
Emergency personnel visited the Montebello and Montecino apartment complexes on Feb. 19 for a safety fair aimed at children.

It was a deadly apartment fire in Aloha over a decade ago that pushed the Tualatin Valley Fire and Rescue District to redouble its public education effort.

That blaze, which killed five children and three adults on June 28, 1996, at the Oakwood Park Apartments in Aloha, saw over 20 tenants jumping off second- and third-story balconies to escape. Fourteen other people were injured, and 57 residents were displaced from their homes.

Just a year-and-a-half before that, three children were killed by a devastating fire on Jan. 12, 1995, at the Autumn Park Apartments in Wilsonville.

District officials were concerned and wanted to help people help themselves in dangerous situations where help may still be some minutes away.

The result today often takes the form of a massive orange trailer towed by a TVFR command vehicle. And that’s exactly what residents at Wilsonville’s Montebello and Montecino apartment complexes encountered Thursday, Feb. 18, when they arrived home from work in the afternoon.

“This is our safety house, it’s about a 30-foot-long building,” explained TVFR public information officer Brian Barker. “We actually teach kids primarily about fire escape planning and basic fire safety, basically what to do when you have a fire in your apartment or house.”

Residents gathered in a parking lot and enjoyed pizza and soft drinks provided by Landura Property Management Associates, owner of the two apartment complexes.

Site manager Valerie Hammond noted that two Landura properties in Tennessee recently suffered large fires, including one blaze that destroyed over 30 apartments. Because of that, she said, Landura invited local public safety officials to come out for the afternoon.

“Our get together today was just to get our tenants to know each other and to better know us,” she said. “Landura Management, that manages these, recently had a couple of fires and they know how much damage could be done. It’s to give protection to the children and show them what to do and what not to do, and we felt getting the community involved was good.”

In the trailer, Barker guided groups of children through a fire drill that includes simulated smoke and a quick escape through a back window.

“We teach kids about what a smoke alarm is, whether it will wake you up at night and why smoke actually makes you want to sleep,” Barker said. “We teach kids and their families to have a home fire escape plan. A lot of times kids will have fire escape planning at school, but they won’t have a plan at home.”

Meanwhile, Clackamas County Sheriff’s Office contact officer Sarah McClurg of the agency’s crime prevention unit also was on hand to offer kids and their parents tips on a range of topics including Internet safety, how to spot meth labs and bicycle and street safety.

Like her colleagues with the fire district, McClurg spends much of her time touring the county and dispensing advice through community outreach events similar to Thursday’s.

“We work very closely with management at this particular apartment complex,” McClurg said. “They’ve been great with sharing information with us and working proactively to make this a safe community, and today we’re doing a mini-safety fair. We usually bring a lot of materials out and we have a lot of information out there for parents as well. It’s a great opportunity to have community outreach and serve the people in our community.”
 
Web:
Tualatin Valley Fire and Rescue: www.tvfr.com.
Clackamas County Sheriff’s Office: www.co.clackamas.or.us/sheriff.

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