(Press Release) — The American Red Cross Home Fire Campaign has teamed up again with the Department of Fire and Emergency Medical Services and the Aircraft Rescue and Firefighting Team to conduct smoke alarm installations on Saipan, Tinian, and Rota over the past few months. Since April of this year, DFEMS and the American Red Cross have installed a total of 129 smoke alarms effectively making over 50 homes made safer.
Along with the smoke alarm installations, Red Cross and DFEMS worked with the Public School System to educate kids on home fire safety and disaster preparedness. In the course of two days, DFEMS, ARC, and ARFF were able to reach out to over 280 3rd-5th graders.
Simple steps to save lives
Even as the Red Cross and other groups install smoke alarms in some neighborhoods, they are calling on everyone to take two simple steps that can save lives: create and practice their home fire escape plan and check their smoke alarms.
There are several things families and individuals can do to increase their chances of surviving a fire:
• If someone doesn’t have smoke alarms, install them. At a minimum, put one on every level of the home, inside bedrooms and outside sleeping areas. Local building codes vary and there may be additional requirements where someone lives.
• If someone does have alarms, test them today. If they don’t work, replace them.
• Make sure that everyone in the family knows how to get out of every room and how to get out of the home in less than two minutes.
• Practice that plan. What’s the household’s escape time?
For more information or to avail yourself of the program, call the Red Cross office at 234-3459.
