An 8-year-old opens her eyes to find her bedroom filled with smoke. Rolling off the bed and crawling across the floor, she reaches the door, which she tests with the back of her hand. It’s hot. She quickly crawls to the first-floor window, opens it and climbs out to safety.

This scenario, played out in a specially designed trailer that pumps a non-toxic theatrical smoke underneath doors and through vents and even heats the door, creates a realistic laboratory to teach kids what to do if they find themselves in an actual house fire. It’s part of a fire safety program that Blank Children’s Hospital will bring to schools statewide beginning in January, with the launch of its new Fire Safety House.

“I like to say that the hospital is paying us to keep kids out of the hospital,” said Melissa Wardell, community outreach educator for Blank’s Center for Advocacy and Outreach.

Using a grant of $57,131 from the Federal Emergency Management Agency and private donations, the children’s hospital purchased the trailer, which is set up like a small house with a living room, kitchen and bedroom. Designed to be run by firefighters, the program will teach kids a host of fire safety lessons, from how to properly call a 911 operator to how to exit a burning house.

The need for fire safety education is highlighted with sobering statistics. Each year in the United States, nearly 40,000 children under the age of 15 are injured in fires in the home, and several hundred will die from smoke inhalation or burns. In 2002, an estimated 83,300 children were treated in emergency rooms for burn-related injuries. In Iowa, six of the state’s 39 fire fatalities last year were children younger than 15.

Blank had operated a mobile fire house for nine years, but discontinued the program in May 2003 when the trailer became too worn to be hauled across the state.

“At that time, my supervisor just happened to be talking to a member of the Elks who was also a volunteer fireman, and told him we were going to be retiring the fire safety house,” Wardell said. “The mission of telling kids about fire safety was really close to his heart, so he thought maybe there was something the Elks could do to help.”

The Iowa Elks Association, which has also donated funds to purchase fire safety houses for the Denison, Packwood and Kanawha fire departments, has committed to donate $43,800 over the next six years for Blank’s program. Other major donors include Prairie Meadows Racetrack and Casino and the Iowa State Aerie Fraternal Order of Eagles, in partnership with the Iowa Firemen’s Association.

“Blank has committed to provide this vehicle for fire safety education anywhere in the state of Iowa, free of charge,” Wardell said. “Basically, a fire department will call us and let us know they want to do fire safety education in their area. We will arrange a date, train the firemen on how to use the house and allow them to borrow the house for however long they need to use it.”

Though an educational group could reserve the house, “we prefer to partner with fire departments because firefighters are the experts on fire safety,” she said. “They’re also used to dealing with large groups and with kids. This is just an extra tool for them to use in their area.”

Some of the features of the fire safety house include a telephone children can use to practice making a 911 call. A firefighter stationed inside a small control room in the trailer will take the calls.

The trailer will also be equipped with video cameras inside and a television mounted on its exterior so that children waiting outside can see their classmates respond to the mock fire.

Other features of the trailer will allow it to be used to train children how to react to severe weather situations while at home. Lights and sound effects will be used to simulate a severe thunderstorm or tornado. The hospital also plans to ask a local weather forecaster to tape a mock severe weather warning that will play on the house’s interior television – before the lights go out.

“It really opens up another door of options for us,” Wardell said. “A fire department might do fire safety one week and severe weather the following week. Or they may schedule to teach severe weather training in the spring and then fire safety in the fall.

“What I’m really excited about is reaching out to children with disabilities,” she said. Equipped with wide doors and ramps, the trailer is accessible to children in wheelchairs, and the program will be extended to the deaf and non-English speaking communities as well, she said.

Wardell said she will send invitation letters out to each fire department in the state, and that reservations will be accepted beginning Jan. 2. For more information, contact Wardell at 241-6708.