Red Cross, Las Vegas Fire & Rescue install free smoke alarms for valley residents
LAS VEGAS (KLAS) — The American Red Cross and Las Vegas Fire & Rescue teamed up Saturday to install more than 500 free smoke alarms in Las Vegas homes.
The effort is part of their annual Sound The Alarm event to encourage fire preparedness through equipment and education.
“The entire goal is to make our community safer and everybody a little bit more prepared in the event of a fire,” Rachel Flanigan, the executive director of The America Red Cross of Southern Nevada explained.
More than 150 volunteers and LVFR crews helped out in various areas including areas near Historic Westside.
“A lot of the area that the builds were done prior to some of the fire codes that required some of those smoke alarms,” Flanigan explained.
That’s where 66-year-old Sandy Cooley lives and he admitted that he’d never changed the smoke alarms in the 26 years he’s resided there.
“I feel safer,” Cooley said as Las Vegas firefighters installed the wired connections on a ladder, a task too difficult for Cooley.
The new alarms have a 10-year battery. When it comes time for a replacement, officials say to go by the manufacture date, not the date of installation. There are other indicators too such as discoloration, or that the alarm was made before manufacture dates were printed. The best rule of thumb is that if it’s over 10 years old, it is time to replace it.
Fire inspector Melanie Dennon said in most fatal fires, the home either didn’t have a smoke alarm or the alarm didn’t work.
“With smoke alarms, proper exit pathways, and ways to get out of your house, there is no need for anybody to die in a housefire,” Dennon said.
Firefighters equipped residents with knowledge too, telling residents “Closed before you doze,” a rhyme to remember to shut all doors at nighttime in order for the smoke to hit the alarms and signal a fire and to avoid smoke inhalation.
“Smoke is what kills you in a fire,” Dennon explained.
She also discussed the value of knowing two ways to get out in case of a fire, forming and practicing an evacuation plan that includes a meeting space. If all occupants in a house are accounted for at a meeting place, there would be no need for a firefighter to risk their life by entering an empty home.
Dennon explained that in the case of a fire, residents have three minutes or less to get out because of how easily flammable furniture is nowadays.
The heads up from a smoke alarm could save a life.
The American Red Cross installs smoke alarms year-round through their Home Fire Campaign, and they are always looking for volunteers.
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