The North Carolina Jaycee Burn Center will receive a $300,000 grant from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). The grant will be used to educate low-income North Carolinians about fire safety and prevention.

Bruce Cairns, director of the North Carolina Jaycee Burn Center, spoke to Blake Hodge in a phone interview Friday. Cairns said the money will be used in other ways too.  “We are going to identify where the high-risk, vulnerable populations are,” he said. “And deploy our education materials for burn prevention and fire prevention.”

Cairns also said part of the funds will be used to teach initial responders how to provide initial burn care.

“That is an ongoing problem,” he said. “People don’t have a lot of experience dealing with this particular injury.”

The North Carolina Jaycee Burn Center is one of the few in the nation that is American Burn Association verified for adult and pediatric care. Cairns said that by using the grant to improve outreach to low-income and rural communities, it could significantly change the number of burns doctors at the Burn Center see each year.

“Ultimately the goal is to help educate people about the dangers or the risks of fires,” he said.

But he also said the goal is to work with different programs across the state to keep North Carolina residents safe.

“The idea is that we work together,” Cairns said. “All of these various services that are there for the people, we work together to prevent this injury and minimize its consequence.”