The Councilor for Mobility and Citizen Security, Juan José Pérez del Pino, has presented the activities of the Fire Prevention Week which is held from Thursday to Sunday in the Town Hall Square with the support of the Mapfre Foundation and the Professional Association of Fire Technicians (APTB) and the collaboration of the City Council through the Fire Extinguishing and Rescue Service, Firefighters. Juan José Pérez del Pino was accompanied by the person in charge of Mapfre in Toledo, Cristina López, as well as by Gabriel Muñoz from the Professional Association of Fire Technicians (APTB), by the Fire Chief, Isabelo Sánchez, and by the person in charge of Civil Protection in the city, Ángel Villasante.
As they have explained, Toledo schoolchildren will be able to enjoy different events related to prevention, including visits for students and teachers to learn about the evacuation operation in educational centers, the instructions for correctly using a fire extinguisher, or the steps to carry out a cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR).
There will also be space for the ‘Evacuation House’ in which, free of charge, residents of all ages can participate. This simulator, installed in the Plaza del Ayuntamiento, can be visited from 4:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. from Thursday, May 19 to Saturday, May 21, which recreates a multi-room house using an inflatable construction.
The staging involves the presence of smoke, harmless in this case, so that young and old know how to ‘escape’ from a fire with all the guarantees. The evacuation route is guided by professional trainers and firefighters from the Toledo City Council, “it is the best way to learn in the face of a possible risk situation of this type,” they explained. Likewise, every day there will be exhibitions of vehicles and firefighters’ clothing. Closing date will be Sunday, May 22.
According to the data published last year in the Study of Fire Victims prepared by Fundación Mapfre and APTB, they show that the largest number of deaths from fires in Spain is caused by fires in the living room or in the bedroom and, on many occasions, during the night. In Spain, 119 people died due to a fire in the home during the year 2020, with 66 percent of the human losses due to poisoning by gases and smoke.
To learn more about the published data, Fundación Mapfre and APTB have developed the Virtual Atlas of Fire Victims. An online digital tool that helps manage all the information obtained in fire studies. This space has been specially designed to make it easier for professionals, in this case communication professionals, to search for and analyze statistics on fire fatalities in Spain.
Anyone interested in these data, in their evolution, in the causes, or in their geographical area, etc. You can easily access this database through this link: https://www.fundacionmapfre.org/educacion-divulgacion/prevencion/estudios/atlas-de-incendios/herramienta-de-estudio/.
A related activity
Since its creation, Fundación Mapfre and APTB’s Fire Prevention Week has reached hundreds of thousands of schoolchildren throughout Spain. To do this, the organization has created fun, entertaining and instructive programs for the children attending. Simulators, educational videos and even plays on how to act in case of fire have been the ingredients of this successful initiative at the national level.
The promotion of self-protection has been extended to people over 65 years of age, especially those who live alone at home and who have stoves, fireplaces or braziers, among others, which can cause an added risk of fire, especially in the months winter, when its use increases considerably.
The basic precautions that must be carried out in the kitchen are not forgotten either, mainly in case of fire related to pans or gas leaks, among others. And it is that reacting calmly and with determination in case of, for example, fire in a pan with oil, can avoid a fatal outcome.
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