Champaign Fire Dept. seeking volunteers to install smoke alarms
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. (WCIA) — The Champaign Fire Department and other organizations are spreading fire safety awareness in the form of testing or installing smoke alarms.
Department officials said smoke alarms cut your chances of dying in a house fire by half. To improve safety, the department is recruiting volunteers to canvass the city and install smoke alarms if a home needs them.
The department will be holding its annual Smoke Alarm Blitz in honor of Christian Sheehan on May 18. But a month before that, on Thursday, they will be doing a “mini-Blitz” to help two neighborhoods that experienced fires in the last week.
A fire on Joanne Lane the afternoon of April 11 left a home severely damaged and a woman seriously burned. Two more people were burned when their mobile home in New Century Estates caught fire in the early morning hours of April 15.
Firefighters will be going from door to door on Joanne Lane from 9 to 11:30 a.m. on Thursday, followed by canvassing in New Century Estates from 2 to 3:30 p.m. The goal this week is to get alarms in at least 20 homes.
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“The Fire Department has made a lot of improvements in how we track all kinds of data, and we’re able to identify that problem more quickly,” said Deputy Fire Marshal Jeremy Mitchel. “And that’s kind of one of the reasons that we’re going up to the Douglass Park neighborhood. We’re able to pivot a lot faster toward where a potential problem area is.”
He said the Champaign Fire Department is still looking for more than 80 volunteers to participate on May 18 to hand out and install detectors. For more information on how to register, call the Champaign Fire Department.
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