A house fire occurs every 85 seconds nationwide, according to a DeKalb Fire Department press release.

The department is celebrating Fire Prevention Week from Sunday through Oct. 12.

This year’s theme is “Team up for fire safety,” according to www.nfpa.org, the Web site for the National Fire Prevention Association.

“We focus our efforts on prevention,” DeKalb Fire Chief Lanny Russell said. “Our desire is to keep fire safety on the citizens’ minds all year long.”

The fire department has activities planned throughout the month in observance of the week.

“We visit all DeKalb grade schools and St. Mary’s,” DeKalb fire Lt. Joe Jones said. “We do preschools as well as DeKalb home-school kids.”

Jones said the fire department will give about 20 presentations, which will stretch into November.

“This really becomes fire prevention month for us,” he said. “Some of the more populated schools take awhile to get through.”

The firefighters planned activities to emphasize safety when they visit a school.

“Most of the time we wind up doing an assembly for the whole school to talk about Fire Prevention Week and how it came about,” Jones said. “We also give our related fire prevention materials like pencils and coloring books to re-emphasize what we talk about.”

Kindergartners through third graders visit the fire-safety house to practice escaping a house that’s on fire.

The house is called Operation EDITH, which stands for Exit Drills In The Home.

“Preschoolers get a fire-safety talk and the firefighters put on the gear,” Jones said. “We don’t want to scare the little ones.”

According to the NFPA Web site, this year’s focus is on three safety lessons, which are installing and testing smoke alarms, practicing home escape plans and hunting for home hazards.

Also according to the site, the NFPA encourages fire departments to team up with community partners to spread the message that fire safety saves lives.

Most prevention is common sense, like paying attention while smoking, Russell said.

“The most important part of fire safety is having a good, working smoke detector in your house,” Russell said. “Smoke detectors are not designed to save property or to put out a fire; they are strictly meant to save lives. You can replace a house, but you cannot replace a life.”