One August day in 2006, volunteer Upton Fire Capt. Henry Poirier was tinkering with an excavator’s troublesome radiator in his dad’s sand pit when the cap blew off, scalding him with hot steam and boiling fluids.

Badly burned from his nose and chin to his belly and arms - his right hand turning into a ‘‘disgusting’’ balloon, wife Sue says - Poirier was able to call the Fire Department on his radio and was airlifted to UMass Medical Center.

Eighteen months and a miracle later, Poirier is fully recovered except for one burn bubble between his chest and stomach.

‘‘The thing that saved my face is I hadn’t shaved for about three days, a bad habit,’’ he said. ‘‘That saved my face from not being as burnt.’’

Fire departments across the nation are marking Burn Awareness Week - which started yesterday and runs through Saturday - and local officials are sharing safety lessons that could help prevent tragedies and accidents like Poirier’s.

‘‘It’s an effort to increase knowledge and awareness of how to prevent burns,’’ said Milford Fire Chief John Touhey.

From steaming coffee, scorching stovetop skillets and hot bath water to gasoline and drain cleaners, potential danger is all around, Touhey said.

Bonnie Lopez, Upton’s fire prevention officer, remembers growing up learning old wives’ tales about butter and oil being fixes for burns.

‘‘Growing up my mother was like, ‘OK, put butter on it,’ ’’ Lopez said. ‘‘The times have changed.’’

Now, Lopez teaches preschoolers, kindergartners and second-graders about fire safety, doing hands-on lessons by painting kids’ hands red to illustrate ‘‘pretend burns.’’

She then leads them to the sink where they hold their hands under cool water ‘‘to make it feel better.’’ They learn cold water, ice, creams and ointments aren’t good for burns, and neither are butter and oil.

‘‘You always get the stories, ‘Well, my mom burnt her hand doing this,’ or ‘I touched the stove and I burnt myself,’ ’’ Lopez said.

The lessons are important for kids, whose tender skin, like the elderly’s, leaves them most susceptible to burns, Touhey said.

There were 19 burn victims in Worcester County in 2006, a statistic the state fire marshal’s office realized thanks to a state law that requires doctors and hospitals to report serious burns over 5 percent of a person’s body.

The latest state numbers indicate children under 5 suffer 23 percent of reported burns, said Jennifer Mieth, spokeswoman for state Fire Marshal Stephen D. Coan.

Scalding from hot liquids is the leading type of burn in Massachusetts and the nation. The top five burn causes in 2007 are from hot cooking liquids, hot beverages (such as coffee, tea and soup), hot tap water, gasoline and hot food, Mieth said.