Cape Coral free backpack flashers, all 13 fire stations

Cape Coral firefighters are handing out free reflective backpack flashers at all thirteen fire stations and headquarters, and one of the addresses circulating with the story sends parents to the wrong side of the city

Money & World

The Editorial Team · August 12, 2026

An orange canvas school bag propped against a white wall in the foreground of a bright indoor corridor, with several out of focus children sitting on steps reading in the far background. No signage, no street and nothing identifying a place appears. A generic back to school photograph, not a picture of anyone or anywhere in this story.

Stock photo

Stock photo. Not the actual scene. Photo: Norma Mortenson / Pexels

What it changes

The practical content of this item is an address, and it is the one thing the wire version of the story gets wrong. Station 13 is at 2025 NE 6th St, in northeast Cape Coral. The list that ran with the report puts it on Southeast Sixth Street, which is a different quadrant of a city built on a strict quadrant grid, and Cape Coral is the worst possible place to be one letter off, because NE 6th Street and SE 6th Street both exist and are miles apart. If you are driving to a station tonight, use the department's own directory rather than a list copied out of a news story. The same caution applies to Station 10, which the department gives as 3623 Gator Circle West. Second, know what this programme is and what it is not. It is a City of Cape Coral fire department giveaway, so the pickup points are Cape Coral stations. A family in Lehigh Acres, in San Carlos Park, in unincorporated Lee or in Fort Myers is served by a different fire district, and this particular supply is not theirs to collect. If you live outside the city, the useful move is to ask your own district whether it runs the same thing, because several Lee districts do back to school safety pushes in the same week and they are not always covered. Third, the timing is the whole point. Today is the first student day in Lee County under the district's board approved calendar, so the dark morning walk to the bus stop starts tomorrow and continues every school day until the clocks change. A reflector is worth more in the third week of term than in the first, when drivers have stopped expecting children at the kerb. Fourth, treat this alongside the enforcement change that started on the same date. Cape Coral switched its school zone speed cameras back on for August 11, and the penalty for a violation is set by statute at 100 dollars. Both the flasher and the camera exist because the same hour of the morning, before full light, is when a child crossing a road in Cape Coral is least visible to a driver. The flasher is the half of that pair a parent controls. Finally, on what has not been published. The department has not stated a supply limit, a deadline, or which hours a station will be able to hand one over. Crews on shift respond to calls and a station can be empty when you arrive, so if you are making a special trip it is worth calling the station first rather than assuming a counter is staffed. None of those three details is asserted here for the plain reason that the department did not publish them.

The Cape Coral Fire Department is giving out free reflective backpack flashers to students for the new school year, and Lee County classes started today.

Fire Chief Mike Russell said the flashers are meant for the part of the day when a child is hardest to see. "Many students walk or wait for the bus in the mornings when it is still dark out," he told WINK News, which reported the giveaway. "To help them be more visible as they make their way to school, we encourage parents to pick up a free backpack flasher from any of our Cape Coral fire stations."

The flashers are free and available at all thirteen Cape Coral fire stations and at Fire Headquarters.

The addresses below are the department's own, taken from its station directory rather than from the list that circulated with the story:

Station 1, 4610 Coronado Pkwy
Station 2, 521 Nicholas Pkwy
Station 3, 1627 Everest Pkwy
Station 4, 2007 Santa Barbara Blvd
Station 5, 1029 Diplomat Pkwy
Station 6, 4540 Chiquita Blvd
Station 7, 3942 Burnt Store Rd
Station 8, 707 SW 1st St
Station 9, 4107 Pelican Blvd
Station 10, 3623 Gator Circle West
Station 11, 1038 Burnt Store Rd
Station 12, 2129 Chiquita Blvd
Station 13, 2025 NE 6th St
Fire Headquarters and Emergency Operations Center, 1115 SE 9th Ave

Two of those differ from the list that ran with the report. The department places Station 13 at 2025 NE 6th St, in northeast Cape Coral, where the reported list gave Southeast Sixth Street. The department also gives Station 10 as 3623 Gator Circle West rather than Gator Circle. In a city laid out on quadrants, where a northeast and a southeast address with the same number both exist, the department's own directory is the one to drive by.

Mike Russell has led the department since April 2025, according to its administration page.

The school date behind the timing is fixed by the School District of Lee County's 2026-2027 instructional calendar, approved by the board in November 2025, which marks August 11 as the students' first day.

The same date brought back the other half of the morning safety picture. Cape Coral switched its school zone speed cameras on for August 11, with the penalty for a violation set by statute at 100 dollars.

The department has not published a supply limit, an end date, or the hours at which a station can hand a flasher over. Crews respond to calls during a shift, so a station can be empty when a visitor arrives.

Cape Coral firefighters are handing out free reflective backpack flashers at all thirteen fire stations and headquarters, and one of the addresses circulating with the story sends parents to the wrong side of the city

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