In 2021 Cromwell Primary School was the first school in New Zealand to trial a new fire safety initiative.

Our junior students were asked to check out the fire safety features in their homes and submit details. By completing this safety check, the students earned a Junior Fire Fighter badge and a special Fire Safety activity day at school. The badges were presented to the students by the local Firefighters in their full uniform on November 23rd. 

We had 114 students fill out the online form which allowed our local fire brigade to collect valuable information about the community. They visited 12 homes that required a fire safety visit and during these visits, they installed 25 smoke alarms for our families. Attached is a map of the coverage across Cromwell. Martin Jillings our local Senior Advisor was impressed with the data they were able to gather. It provided valuable information and highlighted that the families at Cromwell Primary School are well protected with smoke alarms, and the ones that weren’t were able to be identified and are now also protected.

We appreciate the program our local fire brigade runs biyearly at Cromwell Primary School and think that Junior Firefighters is a great new initiative that we would love to see continue as part of our regular program. As a school, we would like to say a big thank you to Martin and his team for asking us to be part of this initiative and for making it so memorable for our students.