The Cedar Hill Fire Protection District has a new tool to protect the community – an inflatable safe house.
The district paid $9,495 for the safe house, which firefighters will use to teach fire safety, Capt. Dave Tegg said.
“It’s more or less like a maze you kind of follow from one end to the other,” he said. “You’ll go into a living room, and we will talk about fireplace safety, or wood stove safety and fire extinguishers. The smoke detector actually works, and we have a smoke machine that’s piped into the living room.”
While children or others are in the safe house’s kitchen area, firefighters will cover cooking safety and share information about what to do if you are burned, Tegg said.
He said the house will be used to talk about other topics, like the importance of keeping bedroom doors closed while you’re sleeping.
Tegg said the fire district’s old safe house, which was at least 15 years old, looked like an RV on a trailer, and it wasn’t handicap accessible.
He said the district sold the old safe house for $2,000 in spring 2021.
“It served its purpose for a long time,” he said. “It was getting older. It was showing signs of wear and tear and then it also was very large and cumbersome and difficult to maneuver,” he said.
Tegg said the new safe house has an inflatable upper portion and a solid floor and is handicap accessible.
He said the money from the sale of the old safe house was used toward the new one, and donations and district funds covered the rest of the cost.
The new safe house was dedicated to the late William “Bill” James McCabe, who was a volunteer firefighter from 1969 to 1970 with the district and died March 15, 2021, at age 65.
“From what I heard he was a good all-around fireman,” said Tegg, who never worked with McCabe. “Obviously, it was a different time back then and we relied very heavily on our volunteers, and they pretty much made the district go back then.”
When McCabe died, his family asked for donations for the fire district instead of flowers. Those donations totaled $1,715 and were used to help buy the new safe house.
“This is somebody who volunteered and took time out of their life to sacrifice and to serve those around us,” Tegg said. “Bill, as a volunteer during those years, was definitely somebody who would have missed many birthdays and holidays, serving the people of our community and in their time of need.”
Tegg said organizations may request the safe house at school or community events. To request a visit or for information, call the district at 636-285-3345 or visit its headquarters at 6766 Cedar Hill Road in Cedar Hill.