On March 9th 2013 our Firefighters responded to what would be the worst residential structure fire in our history. Eight of our friends and neighbors lives were lost on that day.

  Our department met with The Kentucky Community Crisis Response Board to help us deal with the tragedy. The Crisis Team is a valuable resource that helps with the psychological damage an event like this can cause. After our meeting, they offered their help to the families and the community if they wanted it. Our Auxiliary President, Janet Smith, contacted the family members and made the offer. Some of them accepted it, but only if the fire department members would come too. We agreed and were very anxious to meet with them.

  On the day we met, we were nervous and anxious about the meeting. We had heard that they wanted to do something to help keep others from having to go through the same thing they were going through. They had taken this tragedy that would make most people curse the world and blame everyone else for their pain and decided to try to help other people. We were AMAZED at their strength. They were in mourning for their family, yet they were thinking of others. In our minds that would make a perfect volunteer firefighter. During the meeting, Chief Baker presented the family with the fire departments ideal on what we would like to do. He told them that we already do school visits on a regular basis. We teach the kids to Stop, Drop & Roll and Stay Low in Smoke. But we really don't teach the adults of our community to be Fire Safe. Now we want to start a new program called Give a Beep and change that. We want to have an annual Fire Safety Fair and invite the community and show them what they need to do to be fire safe. We are calling it Give a Beep because we plan to give away as many smoke detectors as we can to our community. First Alert & Kidde companies both donated smoke detectors to help kick off the program. Chief Baker presented the family the logo he had designed for their approval. He explained to them that the fire department would only use this logo with the families blessing. The logo has a number 8 incorporated in the letter B of the word Beep. That number 8 is for their family and so we always remind our community why this program was formed. Again the family showed their excitement about our plan and especially the logo that would forever keep their family in the memory of the community.

  That was the simple beginning to our new program. From a tragedy to helping others try to avoid one.

The logo has an 8 incorporated in the B
for the 8 lost in the March fire.