Firefighters from ACT Fire and Rescue launched their annual fire safety program on Wednesday to show kindergarten children across schools in Canberra that they are friendly giants there to help.

Firefighters and chief officer Paul Swain visited Duffy Primary School yesterday to familiarise kindy kids with their intimidating uniform and breathing apparatus, as well as what to do in case of a fire at home.

“Children are often scared of firefighters because when firefighters arrive it’s like Darth Vader has entered their homes,” Mr Swain said.

“You can imagine for a poor kid caught in a scary, smoky environment, if someone even scarier turns up they’re going to hide instead of yelling out for help.”

The kids were also taught when to ''stop, drop and roll'' and how to ''drop down low and go, go, go'', but Mr Swain said that children learned best from their parents.

“Kids know more about what they’re supposed to do from what their parents do, so we encourage parents to sit down and teach their kids, ‘If we have a fire, what would we do?’” he said.

Firefighter Mark Callaway has four children and looks forward to running fun fire safety lessons with the school classes.

“The kids love it and it’s enjoyable for us too,” he said.

“We always like to push the message that kids should give us a wave or come up so we can show them the truck.”

Kindergartener Orlando got the chance to wear a firefighter’s uniform and spray one of the truck’s hoses and, although a bit shy, said that he had had lots of fun and wasn’t scared of firefighters anymore.

Principal Steve Kyburz was thrilled with the program and encouraged other schools in the area to arrange a session.

“The advice the firefighters provided was simple but practical and the kids got to try it out lots of times,” Mr Kyburz said.

“The kids also enjoyed going up to a firefighter and touching the suit and air tank while feeling very safe and comfortable.”