DIXFIELD — The Fire Department will visit students in the River Valley next week to teach fire safety and prevention.

Capt. Jason Hyde and firefighter Dan Carrier will lead fire safety demonstrations at T.W. Kelly Dirigo Middle School in Dixfield and Dirigo Elementary School in Peru. It’s part of an annual program the department holds with help from junior firefighters from Region 9 School of Applied Technology in Mexico and the Western Foothills Junior Firefighter program in Dixfield.

“We’ll be doing demonstrations for the middle-schoolers on Tuesday and the sixth-graders on Wednesday,” Hyde said. “Thursday and Friday will be dedicated to doing stuff with the students at Dirigo Elementary School.”

One of the main events for sixth-graders is venturing into a handcrafted maze inside of the old Peru Elementary School. The maze will be filled with theatrical smoke, which the students will have to escape from.

“We did it last year and it was a huge hit,” Hyde said. “This way, it teaches students the proper way to escape a burning building.”

Among the other events are a fire extinguisher demonstration, an indoor demonstration on the “stop, drop and roll” method, and the chance to shoot water from a fire hose.

mdaigle@sunjournal.com