“This event started six years ago and really the purpose of the event, originally, was to highlight the emergency operation center and the city wide camera system that was put in throughout the city. From there the event has just grown, it has grown to what it is today,” stated Mark League, Battalion Chief Cal Fire Riverside county fire department. The sixth annual Public Safety Expo was held on Saturday March 23rd at the Moreno Valley Police Department. This event’s main focus was to bring community awareness and inform about how the city’s public safety agencies help the community.
“It’s the Annual Public Safety Expo that we have here every year in the city of Moreno Valley where we join all of our public safety agencies that work in the city of Moreno Valley and we show the public what public safety is and what kind of services they get,” said Fernando Herrera, Captain with Cal Fire and the Riverside Fire Department. The event was kicked off with booths set up all around highlighting the different agencies that attended, which include: Ladder truck and technical rescue program, the urban search and rescue program, public information officers, hazardous materials team, type 3 woodland fire fightings engines from Cal Fire, EMT, breathing support, communications unit, and helicopter 301, ham radio operators, public safety trailer, bureau of land management fire department, March air reserve base, Sheriff’s department, K-unit, SWAT, office of emergency management, and helicopter star9. The abundance of people ventured through the booths leaning about each service present and observing the police and fire vehicles and helicopters. They had red fire hats for the kids, kids games and painting, prizes, food, police motorcycles you could sit on, and tons more interactive activities for everyone.
The main booth that caught the children’s eye was the fire safety booth, where they learned about in home fires and the process of what to do when it happens. “We teach them about kitchen fire safety. Say there is a panel fire how to contain it, what not to put in a microwave, how to call 911, what you need to tell 911, like your street address. And also we show them the alarm and then we change them back to a bedroom incident like a scenario if there is like a fire, what they do like get down low so you don’t breath in smoke and how to open your window and to not touch the door knob or anything cause that will be hot,” stated Paola Flores, booth demonstrator.
This booth’s main focus was for kids, to help show them safe and proper solutions on how to react during one of these emergencies. “There is a lot of ways that we expose kids to positive interactions right and one of those ways is just like you saw some of our demos. We had a K-9 demo, we had the jaws of life from the fire department, tracking demo from our bloodhound so just that positive interaction letting them know how we work on a day to day basis and really giving them dreams and aspirations too cause some kids actually want to go in these fields and there is opportunity for them to do that,” mentioned Deputy Mike Vasquez. Sarah Dunham, Miss Teen Moreno Valley, was out making an impact and trying to help get the kids aware about public safety, “Just make sure you are always prepared and aware of your surroundings.” The crowd was illuminated by families with children of all ages, learning about police and fire men and how they handle bad situations. “They love to see the fire men, they love to see the police department in a different atmosphere, not in a negative, a very positive atmosphere. We’re their friends and so here we are just kind of showing them what we do everyday in a nice controlled environment, fun environment so they can get friendly, they can not be afraid of the fire department, or the police department. That we are here to protect them and save them and how fun these careers are if they are looking at something when they get older,” mentioned Herrera.
The demonstrations were the next big crowd pleaser for everyone. “We do demonstrations, like the Fire Department will do the vehicle cut and rescue where we extricate somebody from a vehicle. The police department does their canine program and basically shows how the K-9’s work out on the field to apprehend, obviously, criminals,” said Herrera. The first demonstration was the fire and cut rescue which ended in a flood of applause and cheers. The second demonstration with the K-9 finding the ‘bad guy’ in different scenarios really helped the community understand what the fire and police department can do for everyone if necessary.
All in all, this event was great exposure to the community and successfully highlighted the law enforcement and fire departments in a friendly, comfortable and humane manner. “Today it is that friendly, ‘hey’ get to know us, know that we’re human just like you are,” said Deputy Sheriff with Riverside Sheriff’s department, Kevin Brooks. It also gave the community a chance to interact with who is protecting and serving their lives, “It just brings the community and the first responders closer together,” said Brooks. if you missed out this year, don’t be too sad, there will be another chance. “There will be a 7th annual one and we are looking forward for you guys to come out,” said Vasquez.