The Youthful Firesetter Program, FIREBUSTERS, is a program designed to make contact with children that have a curiosity with fire. The program was established to provide intervention from an educational point of view. Through an interview process information is gathered to estimate a child’s level of curiosity. Once the level of curiosity is established a basis of education can be executed. The FIREBUSTERS program is a positive educational experience many times, not only educating the child, but educating the other family members as well. The education heightens the awareness all members of the family to the importance of fire safety and the importance of a functioning smoke detector.

Last year alone, the FIREBUSTERS came in contact with 8 youthful firesetters ranging from the ages of 4 to 16. All the contacts were with curiosity firesetters and not malicious firesetters. Contact with firesetters is originated either from coming in contact with child at the scene of a fire, through their parents, the police or the school system. Many times their parents recognize this curiosity at home and make the initial phone call. We have only begun to scratch the surface of a very dangerous situation, curiosity firesetters.

The program has been fortunate to have some very dedicated members, Scott Spinazola, coordinator, Dave Weiss, Terry Madden, Jim French, and Steve Mast, all fire safety specialists.

Respectfully,
F/M1 Scott Spinazola
Coordinator