HARMONY — Music, fireworks and fire trucks will light up Main Street Thursday as the Harmony Fire District holds its second annual open house.

The event will feature a raffle and fire safety activities for children and adults. It begins at 6 p.m. at the fire station, 543 Main St.

Harmony's annual concert in the park series also kicks off Thursday night with two performances concluding with fireworks.

The fire district is the merger of the Harmony and Zelienople fire companies. The district also covers Lancaster and Jackson townships.

The auxiliary will be selling food and drinks, and all the money raised will go to the district and the volunteers that make it run, said Scott Garing, Harmony Fire District chief.

“We did it last year, and the amount of people that showed up was unreal,” he said. “There were hundreds.”

Garing believes there might be more this year, due to a greater awareness in the area and better advertising on the part of the district.

“The auxiliary will be selling food, and there will be a concert,” he said. “There's also fireworks that night, courtesy of the borough.”

There also will be a car raffle.

The district is hoping that in addition to the festivities, attendees will learn a thing or two about fire safety.

“It is absolutely paramount that people know the importance of fire safety,” said Garing. “If we can help life, that's worth a million bucks to us.”

The event will feature fire safety activities to teach children and adults about the dangers and proper responses to a fire.

“There'll be activities for the kids, a fire extinguisher simulator for children and adults too and a simulated house fire for the kids,” said Garing. “It's not real fire. The kids spray it down with a garden hose.”

The department offers educational opportunities yearlong and often visits schools to teach the children about fire safety.

“We talk about the dangers of fire and what to do if there is a fire,” Garing said.

Much of that involves safely exiting the building and staying safe while firefighters respond to the fire, he said.

“Globally, as a whole, we don't go to as many fires,” Garing said. “There's a decrease and I like to think education has something to do with it.”

This will be the district's second open house since it formed in 2015. Since then, the district has been focused on growing and improving its ability to respond to incidents in its coverage area.

“It's been going great,” said Garing. “We really hit the ground running.”

The department has maintained a focus on keeping up with training its responders.

“Training is constant,” he said.

This summer the district is also preparing for the launch of the SAFER group's initiative to standardize equipment and training across several departments in the region.

Training has already begun and will continue throughout the summer to prepare for the Sept. 1 launch of the new operating guidelines. Garing is one of the fire chiefs in the SAFER group.

Additionally the district has replaced aging equipment and is hoping to expand to accommodate a growing number of volunteers and to provide the district with a centralized location with which to prepare for and respond to incidents.

“We just got our ladder truck, so that's been really good,” said Garing. “Our next thing on our plate is a station sometime in the future.”

The district has been considering a move since 2015.

“That'll take years to accomplish,” he said.