Fire Safety Education Clip Art

Types Clip Art Designs

There are hundreds of different clip art images that relate to fire safety themes and can be developed into great projects. Some of the most obvious images include:

• Fire fighters’ equipment: Hoses, helmets, fire trucks, hydrants, axes, extension ladders and the firemen themselves
• Buildings with a related theme: Fire stations or buildings on fire
• Home fire safety equipment: Smoke or fire alarms and fire extinguishers
• Common fire symbols: Dalmations or fire icons
• Fire images: Flames, wildfires, and building fires, particularly if they are showing accidental fires

To truly illustrate fire safety, however, more creative images need to be used. Images that show fire hazards and more uncommon ways of putting out fires can be very useful in teaching different safety concepts. Choices include:

• Matches, lighters and other fire-starting tools
• Campfires, fireworks, candles, fireplaces and other useful fires
• Electrical sparks, piles of newspapers, oil and gas cans, frayed cords and other potential fire hazards
• Baking soda, dirt, water and other ways to put out fires

Different images can also be combined to create larger clip art pieces that illustrate more complex fire safety ideas, such as placing a candle near a curtained window to show another type of fire hazard. Just having fire safety clip art images is not enough; how those images are used is the key to their effectiveness.

Using Fire Safety Education Clip Art

The easiest uses for fire safety clip art images are illustrations or pictures on worksheets or safety Web pages. There are many other ways this clip art can be used, however, and the more creative the use the more informational it will be. Alternative uses include:

• Enlarging images into coloring pages for younger children
• Designing interactive worksheets such as matching the proper type of extinguishing method with different hazards or crossing out all the hazards in a detailed house image
• Printing household signs to use as reminders such as checking smoke alarms or how to use a fire extinguisher
• Designing home safety evacuation plans with labels for where extinguishers and exits are located
• Creating homeschool fire safety lessons and materials
• Adding images to a school, neighborhood or church newsletters or Web sites as helpful tips and reminders
• Creating awareness stickers to use as prizes, rewards or reminders
• Designing thank you notes for local firefighters and fire safety guards and volunteers

By using clip art images in a wide variety of ways, the concepts illustrated will be reinforced as lifelong safety habits.

Where to Find Fire Safety Clip Art

There are many resources available for fire safety education clip art. Most word processing programs have built-in clip art galleries with at least a few fire safety images, and additional images can generally be downloaded for free or only minimal fees. Several Web sites also offer galleries of fire-related clip art that can be used for many different projects. Good online resources include:

• World Fire Departments: Large collection of free fire safety clip art organized into categories
• Safety Publishers: CD for purchase with more than 2,700 fire clip art images in different formats
• Environment, Health, and Safety Online: Small collection of free fire clip art images
• iClipart.com: Large collection of widely varied clip art to download with membership
• Cool Clips: Categorized fire protection clip art for free downloads
• Cool Clips: Wide selection of fire extinguisher images for free downloads

Book stores may also have clip art books with images that can be scanned or copied for different uses, and many basic images can be easily drawn on paper or with computer graphics programs.

Free or Paid?

When searching for clip art, many people debate whether to use free images or to pay for compilation CDs or file collections. While both resources offer a range of images, paid collections usually have a wider variety, particularly of unique images, and they can usually be resized and manipulated more easily than free images. If the clip art will be used for many projects, a paid collection may be a better choice because of this flexibility, and most collections are reasonably priced for the tremendous selection they offer. If, on the other hand, only a few basic images are necessary, a free gallery may have just the right clip art to choose from.

Fire safety education clip art comes in many forms and has many different uses. Regardless of how it is used, if it manages to teach and reinforce fire safety concepts, then it is one more spark of safety from which students can learn.