County residents won’t have to yell fire to get the local department at their doors for the next few months.

Thursday, May 11, 2000

County residents won’t have to yell fire to get the local department at their doors for the next few months. Firefighters just need to find out a house is lacking a smoke detector, said Mike Boster, Rome Township Volunteer Fire Department public information officer.

"The Rome department is partnering with the Ohio Fire Marshal’s Office Prevention Bureau," Boster said. "We are the local link to our community for Project SAFE."

Project SAFE, also known as Project Smoke Alarms for Everyone, is a program especially made for southern and southeastern Ohio, Boster added.

"The project was set up because of the fire death and injury rate and the number of incidents of fire in southern and southeastern Ohio," he said.

In 1998, there were more than 55,000 fires in the State of Ohio. Of those fires, which caused almost $300 million in damages, 152 people were killed and 1,326 were injured.

Those deaths and injuries might have been prevented if more people had working smoke alarms installed in their homes, Boster said.

"A working alarm can add precious minutes onto the time a family has to escape from a fire," he said. "Within a matter of two to five minutes a room can become totally engulfed in flames from a small fire. The faster you’re alerted, the more chance you have to survive. In fact, having a working smoke alarm more than doubles the chance of survival if there is a fire in a home."

Smoke detectors are free through this program and the firefighters at local participating departments will install them, Boster said. The Rome Township department already has begun its search for homes without alarms.

"Our department, we’ve set up various means to obtain information about who doesn’t have a working smoke alarm," he said. "We work with the second harvest program, which is a food bank, because they meet the needs of lower income people who are more likely not to have a working smoke alarm. Secondly, we work with the school system by sending out a parent letter. We sent letters out in April and we got a few names from that."

So far, the department only has a list of 11 names, but there are a lot more people in Rome Township and the rest of the county in need, Boster said.

"We want to encourage families who don’t have an alarm, or know other families who don’t, to contact us on the Rome Township business line at 886-6770, or to find a local department, you can call the (Emergency Management Agency) office and I’d share information with them."

Smoke alarms should be placed on every level of a home, including the basement and garage, Boster said. People should especially target sleeping areas.

And it doesn’t help if the battery in a detector is old, not working or not installed, he added.

"A lot of people pull the battery out of the alarm, which is a bad idea because people forget to put them back in," Boster said.

A smoke detector is only one small part of a fire safety plan, which should be implemented in every household, Boster said.

"Families should be involved in planning and practicing fire escapes with families," he said. "And that would be a good time to test your smoke alarm. It’s also helpful if people furnish their homes with at least one ABC type fire extinguisher. They are good for generally all fires, including electrical fires, grease fires or just common combustible fires. Along with doing that people should educate themselves on when to use the fire extinguisher and when to escape. You shouldn’t fight a full blown house fire with an extinguisher. You have to know when it’s time to go outside and dial 911."