Huneke spreading fire awareness; Miss Fire Prevention takes on responsibility

Senior Abbey Huneke was elected to become Miss Fire Prevention for Harford County on Nov. 7, 2021 and has been busy with the job since.

     Being Miss Fire Prevention comes with a lot of responsibility such as “spreading awareness about fire safety and fire hazards throughout the county,” Huneke says.  She adds that she goes to almost every event at every firehouse within the county such as banquets and open houses.

     Everytime Huneke goes to an event at a firehouse, she gives a little speech giving a fire prevention tip and to spread awareness. 

     She enjoys being Miss Fire Prevention and the thing she enjoys the most is “being able to go to all the different firehouses and how it is different everywhere,” because she is used to the company that she volunteers at which is Jarrettsville Volunteer Fire Company.

     Every year each fire department in HarCo has a banquet and she is able to attend every banquet that is hosted, she also gets to walk or ride in parades like “Christmas parades and Fourth of July parades.”      

     She also gets to attend any open houses that they have during fire prevention week. She will also get “invited,” to events like company bingos and she also gets to go to Ocean City in the summer for Fire Convention Week and gets to compete for the Maryland title.

     To become Miss Fire Prevention there was really no qualification to meet you just have to “know fire related trivia,” because they are asked multiple fire related questions on stage and they “have to go to a private interview with the judges,” Huneke says. 

     “It is just by age group,” she also says, there is Little Fire Chief and Little Miss Fire Prevention which are for ages “four-eight [she] thinks,” and then there is Junior Miss Fire Prevention which is for “[she] thinks ages 10-12 or 13 year olds,” and then there is Miss Fire Prevention for the “older people.”

     On top of being Miss Fire Prevention, Huneke is an EMT at JVFC, she “gets to ride the ambulance, go on calls, spend the night there on Friday nights and work overnight,” she says. She is also able to take all sorts of classes like Fire Fighting classes or even a Hazmat class if she wanted to on top of being Miss Fire Prevention but as of right now she is not planning on taking any additional classes.