Local fire companies made a visit to Palmerton Area High School on Friday as part of Fire Prevention Month, providing students with crucial lessons that could one day help save lives.

Among other lessons, firefighters taught students how to react if a stove or oven fire occurs in their homes. “They’re teaching how to keep the oven door closed if anything catches on fire,” Chris Jahelka of the Aquashicola Fire Department said, stressing the importance of remaining calm and taking the correct steps. Students also learned about proper smoke detector placement and maintenance.

Pete Beblavy showed students the proper way to use a fire extinguisher, employing the “pull, aim, squeeze, sweep (PASS) method.

“A lot of these situations may be common sense to us, but if you never saw them, you don’t really know,” Jahelka said.

In addition to the safety demonstrations, students were given the chance to experience the physical demands of firefighting through a fitness challenge.

“They’re letting the students get the experience of what it’s like — dragging the hoses, putting out a little fire,” Jahelka said.

While fire companies typically go to elementary schools for fire prevention activities, Friday’s event was a chance to engage high school students’ interest in possibly joining a local department.

Aquashicola Fire Department currently has about seven junior firefighters between Palmerton and Carbon Career & Technical Institute students.

“Maybe events like this just give them a little interest while they’re young,” Jahelka said. “Maybe they go to do whatever they do after high school, and then in their mid-20s come back to wherever they live at the time and join the fire company.”

Fire companies, like Aquashicola, rely on volunteers, and Jahelka emphasized the importance of community service, whether through firefighting or other means.

“I hope they start to get a sense of the fact that everybody here is volunteering, and maybe it’s something they could do in the future,” he said.