"Firestarter Month"

"Firestarter Month"

by:

Virgilio F. De leon Jr.

     March has been dubbed Fire Prevention month which is quite ironic because from all of the Fire Trucks that you hear on the street you would have guessed that there ought to be far fewer fires by now. Not really. Not by a long shot. It sounds like the streets of Silent Hill sometimes with all those blaring sirens.

     This month records the most fires in all of the other months of the year combined and for good reason the government want the general populace to prevent fires but even with the constant warnings and drive the record breaking fires still continue. Even before the Fire prevention month kicked in there were  3 major fires in the Valenzuela area alone that has left hundreds homeless and a horde of impostors who want to take advantage of peoples good will.

     One of my friends in facebook simply dubbed this month Fire Starting Month and I can't argue with him about that because that seems to be more apt than the misleading Fire Prevention month. Of course no straight thinking politician (relatively) would ever want to change the name because Fire Starting Month sounds a lot more fun.

     Then again some might turn it into a fiesta of some sort , We always find a way to turn things like this into a party or celebration one way or another. Lets say we have an excess of Lechon somewhere , we have a Lechon Festival , if we have an excess of Chicken we have Chicken Festivals or Coconuts then we have Coconut festivals. So lets do the same with Fire , there is a relatively cheap way of celebrating it. We just need to set fire to a lot of Garbage dumps. We could even invite Drew Barrymore to make it an official Firestarter month.

     Kidding aside it is really up to the citizenry to be vigilant about fires during this month  , they should be watchful of their neighbors and their own household as well. After all a fire starts when we neglect things like candles , do not turn off leaky gas valves or make our power outlets into an "Octopus".  The Government can only make us aware but it is still up to us to make a difference in our communities.