Brunswick County firefighter ignites new passion for educating youth on fire safety

What started as an activity for one firefighter to do with his kids is now earning him likes, follows, and comments on social media.

BRUNSWICK COUNTY, NC (WWAY) — What started as an activity for one firefighter to do with his kids is now earning him likes, follows, and comments on social media.

Chris Maleta and his family moved to Brunswick County nearly two years ago from Kansas where he served as a firefighter for 13 years. He’s continued his career in North Carolina and has now been in the fire service for 15 years.

“My family has been in the fire service for over 100 years. I have cousins in Saint Joe, Missouri where they started their firefighting careers. My grandfather was then on the Kansas City Fire Department and that’s what led my cousin, myself, and my brother to join the Kansas City Fire Department,” Maleta said.

Before making the move to North Carolina, Maleta was in a bookstore and found a fire safety book and wondered how someone who had never spent a day in turnout gear could share safety tips.

“I wrote a couple of books up and then realized maybe I should do this on YouTube, so I created the character Tommy Flames,” Maleta said.

Tommy Flames is a character on YouTube Maleta created to help teach young children about fire safety two years ago. Now, his most popular video has more than 126,000 views.

“It was very hard for me to come out, in the beginning, to do this, especially being on the fire service. I got heckled a lot but it was all in good fun. Now, I want this to be big. Not only to be big but also because of the things we can do with it,” Maleta said. “I’ve noticed a lot of things on YouTube lately and a lot of them it’s just crazy entertainment stuff. So hopefully, not only can I entertain, but get a little education also on top of it.”

Two years and close to 2,000 subscribers later, Maleta hopes his channel continues to grow. He has dreams of visiting children’s hospitals and making kids smile, all while teaching them about fire safety.

“I would love to be able to reach out and kind of do a Make a Wish. I’m not that big glamourous guy yet but maybe do my own,” Maleta said. “Like, around Christmastime or something. Just give them that little bit of time away. If it just gives them two minutes to be excited and entertained, that would be awesome.”

If you would like to check out Tommy Flames, you can find him on YouTube and his website. On his website, you can find printable coloring pages that go along with his YouTube videos.