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How can we get smoke alarms in existing houses ???????

C

cda

Sawhorse 123
Joined
Oct 19, 2009
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How can a city get smoke alarms in existing homes, besides during remodeling????

We have quite a few that either have one or none.

Have tried numerous ways, including block walks, but hard to hit the majority of the city

Do not want to make the news or lose lives

Chief Bob Sharp said. Jones said the home had no functioning smoke detectors; one was found in a cabinet, but it didn't work.

CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — Eight people, including a woman celebrating her 26th birthday and six young children who stayed over for a family slumber party, died Saturday when fire tore through a two-story home while they slept, officials and witnesses said.

A seventh child was on life support after the blaze, the deadliest in West Virginia's capital city in more than 60 years, Charleston Mayor Danny Jones said.

The cause was under investigation. The fire appeared to have started on the first floor of the home, Charleston Assistant Fire Chief Bob Sharp said. Jones said the home had no functioning smoke detectors; one was found in a cabinet, but it didn't work.

A children's picnic table, chairs and an umbrella were overturned in the yard of the home, sitting on a corner in a neighborhood tightly packed with small houses. The outside of the front of the home was blackened by the flames and smoke. Two upstairs windows were shattered and blackened, and what appeared to be an opening for an upstairs air conditioner was stuffed shut with clothes.

Sharp said two of those killed were adults and all of the children who died were younger than 8. Ten people were inside the house at the time of the fire — about 3:30 a.m. — and all were related.

Roxie Means and her 14-year-old daughter, Cassie, attended a birthday party Friday for Lisa Carter, a hotel worker whose 26th birthday was Saturday. A manager at the Holiday Inn Express Charleston Civic Center said he was told Saturday that Carter had been killed.

Carter and her two children were staying with her sister at the home, Roxie Means said.

People started showing up for the party around 2 p.m. Friday and it started outside an hour later with a cookout and toasts to the birthday girl.

"They were nice people drinking a glass of wine," Roxie Means said. "They weren't drunk. They weren't overdoing anything."

Cassie Means said she had gotten to know Carter and played with her children often. Carter told her that she was planning to get married in June and move to Pittsburgh to start a new chapter in her life.

"I love the kids," Roxie Means said. "That's really what hurts us."

Cassie Means said she noticed lit candles inside the home when she attended the party Friday night.

And before she left, Carter's two children wanted to know if she would be back on Saturday.

"I was telling the kids good night," Cassie Means said. One of the children asked her, "'Cassie, are you coming over to play with us tomorrow?' I said, 'yeah.'"

The child continued, "'you promise me you'll be here tomorrow?'" Cassie Means recalled. "I said, 'I promise you I'll be here when you wake up to play with you. I'll be here right when you wake up."

Hours later, the only adult survivor was smoking a cigarette outside, noticed the fire and came running to Means' home and started "beating down the door," Roxie Means said.

The home was engulfed in flames when firefighters arrived. When they went inside, they immediately came across five victims and "started realizing there were a lot of people in this house, a lot of children."

Jones said he was devastated by the news when he got the call after the fire was reported.

"I was with my children and I just grabbed them and hugged them, because I have a 5-year-old and a 4-year-old," he said. "I walked up there and caught a glimpse of some fatalities and it's something that's hard to grasp. The fact that there are (six) dead children, it's unimaginable."

Rusty Eaton, general manager at the Holiday Inn Express Charleston Civic Center, said Carter was one of his employees. Eaton said he was notified of Carter's death by her mother Saturday morning.

"Everybody's taking it pretty tough, including myself," Eaton said. "It's a tough thing. It's something you hope you never have to deal with."

He said Carter had worked at the hotel's front desk for about six months and also helped audit financial paperwork at night. He said that she felt at ease speaking with anyone and that "you didn't have to teach Lisa personality."

"She had one of those infectious smiles, never met a stranger. She had personality to spare," Eaton said. "She was great with our customers, great with her co-workers. Certainly, she'll be sorely missed by us."

By midmorning, police had pulled the bodies out. On Saturday afternoon, police searched Carter's vehicle still parked outside.

"She worked seven days a week, had her kids here," Roxie Means said. "''A really nice girl. I just met her, made friends with her yesterday."

Sharp said it was the deadliest fire in the city since seven firefighters perished in while battling a fire at a Woolworth department store in 1949.

"You can imagine how traumatizing that is to us and shocking to the community in general," he said.
 
Go to community fairs, festivals, food distribution, senior citizen centers and schools.

Put them on the trucks, when they go on a medical call, and notice there is no alarm, hand them out
 
You can also use the "Community Emergency Response Teams (CERT)" to do it......

You can also contact the service clubs, Rotary, Lions, Kiwanis.... and ask them to take it on.
 
massachusset adopte a law that requires smoke and CO in all residences, and it is inspected for on sale or transfer of the property by the FD (there is a little wrinkle in the law that I will omit) the minumin is battery operated detectors a the top and bottom of all stairsways, for home buitilt befor 1985 i believe, after that dat consistant with the building code the home was built under, which has up graded the requirments over time.

upgrades to home to current code when bedroom is added or substiantila remodeling
 
Put them on the trucks, when they go on a medical call, and notice there is no alarm, hand them out

Just started doing that

Trying to reach the masses
 
Francis Vineyard said:
Can clubs that Mark H mentioned along with churches, libraries and the News Media get the work out for you? Fire Prevention EventHave not thought about a media approach like in the link

Will look into how we can do that, just a little problem, we are a small city surrounded by two large ones and numerous other little ones

So the media is just not foucused on our town, but I think there is a twist to make it happen
Click to expand...
 
some what of a follow up:

""City Building Inspector George Jarrett told the Charleston Gazette-Mail that rental homes are required to be inspected every two years."""

"""City Building Inspector George Jarrett told the Charleston Gazette-Mail that rental homes are required to be inspected every two years."""

"""The inspection did not occur and was put back into a long list of residences to be visited. Inspectors check up to 40 homes a day, Jones said."""

warrant??????

A Charleston, West Virginia, house where six children and two adults perished in a fast-moving fire early Saturday was scheduled to be routinely checked late last month but the inspector was asked to come back at a later time, city officials said.

The two-story rental home had only one working smoke detector, on the first floor, and it was incorrectly positioned, Mayor Danny Jones told reporters hours after the tragedy. It was on the counter, rather than bolted on the ceiling. One other downstairs detector was not working, he said.

"Had we been able to get in that day, and had we seen the fact they did not have the proper number of smoke detectors, we might have saved a lot of lives," Jones said.

All six children were under the age of 8, and they are all related in some way, the city fire department said. Officials said the victims likely died from smoke inhalation.

A seventh child -- the sole surviving child -- was on life support, the mayor said.

The sole surviving adult, a 24-year-old woman, was outside at the time. She was being treated at a hospital, officials said. The woman made the call from a neighbor's house at 7 a.m. ET Saturday, authorities said.

"We do not have any reason to believe this is arson," Jones said. "We believe it started in front on the bottom floor."

The seven children and three adults had spent the night together after a birthday party for one of the adults Friday evening, the fire department said. Jones said several of them apparently lived in the house.

While foul play is not suspected, the Charleston Fire Department is working with police to investigate the case.

Jones said the building inspector arrived at the home on February 28 after the landlord and the tenant had agreed to his visit. But a juvenile whom Jones described as half-asleep told the inspector that the tenant, one of the victims, was out car shopping.

The inspection did not occur and was put back into a long list of residences to be visited. Inspectors check up to 40 homes a day, Jones said.

City Building Inspector George Jarrett told the Charleston Gazette-Mail that rental homes are required to be inspected every two years.

Residents sometimes remove batteries from detectors, officials said. And inspectors are not permitted to order residents to move if they find a problem.

"Most of our inspectors ... are turned away. 'Don't bother us.' To those people who have turned out inspectors away, at least check your smoke detectors," Jones said.

Chief Bob Sharp of the Charleston Fire Department said that this is the most tragic event he has seen with his 26 years with the department.

The dead were identified as Alisha Carter Camp, 26; Alex Seal, an adult, age unknown; Keahna Camp, 8; Jeremiah Camp, 3; Elijah Scott, 3; Emanuel Jones, 18 months; and Kiki and Gigi, appoximately 3 years old, last names not known.

Authorities didn't immediately know whether all the people in the house lived there.

"One of the messages we get out of this tragedy is we need these inspectors," Jones said.

Downstairs areas need at least one smoke detector. Every bedroom should have a detector, as should hallways next to the bedroom, officials said.
 
Although this is a tragedy and education is the answer, why do you think it is the goverments responsibility to give away/supply smoke detectors to anybody?

Nothing is free from the goverment. Somebody else paid for it.
 
cda. Fire Dept. needs to get involved, door to door, placing door hangers whatever it takes, to let folks know smoke detectors save lives.
 
David Henderson said:
cda. Fire Dept. needs to get involved, door to door, placing door hangers whatever it takes, to let folks know smoke detectors save lives.
Click to expand...
we have done that a few times, but we have ten sq miles to cover, and trying to hit them all, but will keep doing it, and maybe one day we can get a few thousand people out and hit the entire city!!!!!
 
what does your "minimum housing standards" say, and do you have "code enforcement", ordinanaces adopted that make them mandatory. without city council/community leaders behind you, it's be a tough road. by all means highlight the tragedy, it always (ususlly) takes a real "attention getter" to get somebody attention. write an article to the local paper about the possible outcomes (early warning, time to get out), no, or less loss of life, had smokes been in this house. that will turn peoples heads, and maybe change their minds
 
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