Tight city budgets and more money earmarked for homeland security after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks have pinched area fire prevention and safety programs.
But donations, gifts and grants are helping to maintain programs that have been the staple of safety classes for thousands of North Texas children and adults for decades.
No comprehensive statistics exist for the number of fire safety programs in Texas, but several local, state and national fire officials said minimal increases and cutbacks have hit fire departments for the last three years.
The programs are important because they have saved lives, said Wendi Kimpton of the Farmers Branch Fire Department. She is past president of the Metroplex Fire Safety Educators.
"Each of us have stories of parents, teachers or students coming up to us and saying they had used what they had learned in one of our safety classes and it had helped them," Kimpton said.
Colleyville had no money last year for fire prevention programs, forcing the department to eliminate a safety program featuring firefighters dressed as clowns. The fire education budget in Euless got only a $500 increase for its programs during fiscal 2004. Farmers Branch's fire education program budget dropped from $8,000 in fiscal 2001 to $5,000 this year.
"Fire departments are facing a difficult situation with limited funding," said Judy Comoletti of the National Fire Protection Association in Quincy, Mass. "Generally, money goes to training and equipment, and safety education is the first to be cut."
Cuts in safety and health programs have been made in budgets throughout the country.
In North Texas, the programs are still put on during the annual National Fire Prevention observance in October.
But other than that, Euless firefighters have been going to schools only on request. A fire public safety officer position in North Richland Hills has been frozen for three years.
"What's happening now is that fire departments are finding alternative ways to keep programs going," said Chris Barron, director of fire prevention in the Texas State Fire Marshal's Office in Austin.
A $5,000 donation from the Holloway Foundation of Colleyville reached the Grapevine Fire Department's Bucket's Safety Brigade just in time.
Last year, the program named for one of the clowns in the Grapevine program needed a sound system for a 25-minute show focused on swimming and bicycle safety for children.
With the Colleyville donation, the Grapevine safety program took off. By the end of this year, fire officials estimated that they will have performed at about 65 events, compared with a handful just a few years ago.
"We're even getting requests from other cities," said Grapevine fire Lt. Mike Thompson, a member of the Bucket's Safety Brigade.
Members also have helped cut costs by making some of the puppets that they use in the program.
In Irving, gifts and donations helped the Fire Department convert an abandoned fire station into the state's first fire station education building, complete with classrooms and a retired firetruck. Irving fire safety educators moved into the station on Glenwick Lane in January.
"The city could have torn it down, but they decided that we could use it," said Irving firefighter James Malone, a fire prevention specialist.
Fire educators also depend on one another.
"Each city is independent, but we're swapping ideas all the time," said Christine Cox, a public education officer in the Euless Fire Department.
Area fire educators say the introduction into some departments of a new safety program -- Risk Watch -- is a sign of better times ahead.
The program was developed by the National Fire Protection Association. Each year in the United States, about 6,000 children die of injuries related to motor vehicle accidents, fires, choking, poisoning, firearms, bicycles and water. Another 120,000 are disabled from those accidents, according to the association. Exact accident figures for North Texas were not available.
Risk Watch gives children and their families tips on making homes and communities safer.
In recent months, the new comprehensive injury prevention program has been implemented in departments such as in Denton. Through grants, other area fire departments also plan to use it.
