Between letting the whole house know when you overcook something, needing to replace the batteries at least yearly and — if you take too long to do that — the constant chirping, many people see, or hear, smoke detectors as a bit of an annoyance.
But the pros know just how important they are. On average, seven people die every day in home fires across the U.S., according to the American Red Cross.
From 2018 to 2022, nearly three of every five of those deaths occurred in homes with either no smoke alarms or alarms that didn’t work, according to the National Fire Protection Association.
When a fire erupts and a smoke alarm doesn’t go off, the usual suspect is the power source. The batteries are either dead, put in wrong or completely pulled out — many times to stop that chirping.
“In terms of with vs. without smoke alarms, there is a 60% difference in survival rate,” Greeley Fire Department Community Education and Risk Reduction Specialist Bryan Eisen said. “You are much more likely to survive fire incidents with working smoke alarms. And that’s the main goal, right? Our No. 1 goal is always life safety.”
As a part of that goal, the department teamed up with the American Red Cross of Northern Colorado earlier this month to install nearly 200 smoke alarms in more than 70 households across three Greeley mobile home parks.
“We’re grateful for the partnership we share with the Red Cross,” Eisen said. “We’re incredibly thankful that they chose our community to host such a large event and to be able to work with them to target some of our mobile home communities that haven’t had a program like this.”
In the late 1970s and early ’80s, the number of houses with smoke alarms grew rapidly, leading to a nearly equally rapid decrease in house fires.
In 1977, less than a quarter of households had smoke alarms. More recent studies estimate that as of 2015, 92-97% of households now have at least one alarm, according to the National Fire Protection Association.
Conversely, in 1980, the NFPA reported about 734,000 home structure fires. In 2022, that number was 340,000.
“Every second counts when there’s a home fire and the sooner the alarm alerts you to a fire, the sooner you can get to a safer place,” Northern Colorado Red Cross Executive Director Melissa Venable said in a news release. “Those efforts will make a lasting difference to help save lives and protect those who are most vulnerable.”
Mobile homes typically carry a higher fire risk when compared to traditional single-family homes due to a handful of factors.
Often in low-income areas, residents at times may not be able to afford repairs as quickly, leading to an increased risk of fires starting. Once a fire erupts, it spreads quicker because the spaces are smaller and the homes are generally built with lighter materials.
They also tend to have fewer exits than standard homes, making it harder for residents to safely escape once a mobile home is ablaze.
Though a differentiation is not always made between a fire at a mobile home and a standard house, Eisen said in terms of property loss, injury and death, the numbers are “a little bit higher in mobile homes vs. one- and two-family residential properties.”
Along with installing the alarms at The Shire, Greeley Country Estates and Friendly Village, the two organizations and their team of regional volunteers helped the families create an escape plan in case a fire does erupt.
Eisen said an escape plan is crucial — even for those who have lived at the same place for years and feel like they know it inside and out.
“It’s crucial if you’re disoriented, or have a dense layer of smoke above you and have to crawl out of your home,” Eisen said. “It looks a lot different from the ground, crawling through corridors you’re used to walking.”
The event was part of the Red Cross’ national Sound the Alarm initiative, which organizes local smoke alarm and escape plan events to contribute to the organization’s larger Home Fire Campaign.
Since it was launched in October 2014, the Red Cross has helped save at least 2,393 lives and installed more than 3 million smoke alarms, according to the organization.
For more information on the campaign, go to RedCross.org/HomeFires. To ask the Greeley Fire Department about hosting a private fire safety event, contact its Fire Prevention Bureau at 970-350-9510 or [email protected].
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