By Derek Schlennstedt
An education initiative to help hills residents learn about fire safety has launched in Belgrave.
The Belgrave CFA unit and Belgrave Cameo worked together for six months to produce a video explaining the main causes of house fires.
The idea came about to address some confusion in the community.
Belgrave CFA members acted in the videos and helped to write the script for the film, which launched on 26 August.
Crew member Kirstin Cross was instrumental in organising the educational ad.
“At the start and at the finish, this is the story of the remarkable and truly generous relationship between the Cameo Cinema and their community,” she said.
“The CFA has been the messenger but without a carrier for the message the community would not be informed.”
Ms Cross said the idea was born from a community meeting after the Yinnar fires.
“While the Yinnar fires were in progress this year, I was deployed to shifts there and at the same time working on a community education meeting to be held at the fire station,” she said.
“From the 6011 residents in Belgrave and Tecoma we had 35 attendees.
“In casting about for a different approach, it dawned on me that Belgrave, uniquely in the ranges, has a cinema which has itself served the town and surrounds for nearly 90 years.”
As summer turned to winter, it was apt that the advertisement should address house fires, which are more likely over the cooler months.
The advertisement, which has been screening at the Cameo for seven weeks now, addressed the three main causes of house fires – heaters, unattended cooking and candles.
“Our house fire safety ad has now been running for seven weeks and has generated so much positive support – brilliant, professional, great safety message and humour too,” Ms Cross said.
“The Cameo also recently allowed the brigade to use their foyer for two Tuesday nights in a row, to ask patrons about smoke detectors and fire blankets.
“As a result, we were able to engage with the public and gave away 100 smoke detectors and 60 fire blankets with a bag of goodies.”
