Fire Educator Hired After Two Years

The Chatham-Kent Fire Department has a new public educator after that position sat vacant for a few years. Whitney Burk says her focus will be to ramp up education not only in Chatham, but with the surrounding 16 volunteer stations as well. "We're also hoping to launch what we're calling our Fire Company Program, which is concentrating on getting working smoke alarms and working CO alarms into as many people's homes as possible," says Burk. Burk says she is also going to focus on educating those most vulnerable in the community. "Young children is definitely one of them, low income, seniors in the community," says Burk. "One of the benefits of educating children is a lot of times they tend to take that education home and then our message is passed on to the adults that they're living with." While Burk's position was vacant, fire prevention and inspectors assumed those responsibilities.