JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Jax Ready Fest kicks off Friday with an interactive experience focused on teaching you and your family how to be safe during emergencies -- and every day in between.
Dozens of local agencies will be involved, and one of the features the Jacksonville Fire and Rescue Department will be showing off is its fire simulator, which helps explain how to respond to fires that can happen in everyday situations.
MORE: Detailed flyer for Jax Ready Fest
Like, for instance, if you’re making toast but out of nowhere a fire breaks out.
“Now this could be scary for a lot of people. If you prepare and you’re ready in advance, the best thing to do in a case like this is to simply unplug it,” JFRD Lt. Kwasi Dingle said. “A lot of people don’t take fire safety seriously and this is actually a chance for people to go out and get hands on experience in what to do a case a fire occurs in your home.”
In another scenario, the oven catches fire.
“If it happens to catch on fire, the best thing to do… is just to kill the heat source,” Dingle said.
It doesn’t stop there. The simulator even has a mock news emergency broadcast that leads to a lightning storm simulator that shakes the room.
Dingle said JFRD wants you to experience these things in the simulator for a reason.
“Fires double in size and even triple in size every one minute,” Dingle warned. “Average response time in the city of Jacksonville is five to seven minutes. If you can stop a fire before it gets bigger, it’s a great opportunity to mitigate the fire before it gets out of hand and we can come and help.”
The simulator is just a small piece of what will be featured at the Jax Ready Fest.
For more on the two-day fest, click here.