Red Cross to hand out smoke alarms in Carrick, West Newton

The West Newton area and Pittsburgh’s Carrick neighborhood are among nine Pennsylvania communities where the Red Cross intends to distribute free smoke alarms through May 11.

Partnering with area fire departments and businesses, the nonprofit plans to use community volunteers to help distribute 2,850 smoke alarms door-to-door to nearly 1,200 homes in nine counties. It’s part of a national Sound the Alarm initiative aimed at reducing the number of deaths and injuries in home fires.

The Pittsburgh distribution is set for 9:15 a.m. to 3 p.m. May 4, with volunteers meeting at Carrick High School. The West Newton effort is slated for 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. May 11, with volunteers meeting at the Collinsburg Volunteer Fire Department in Rostraver.

Communities were selected for the program because they were identified as having a high number of residential fires yet were less likely to have working smoke alarms in homes, according to Dan Tobin, director of marketing and communications for the Red Cross’ Greater Pennsylvania Region.

Last year in Carrick, a Feb. 18 house fire critically injured an 8-year-old boy who later died and an Aug. 17 fire in a vacant house, which officials ruled an arson, resulted in the death of a 53-year-old man who was a Whitehall native.

A critically ill West Newton man died in a March 13, 2014, fire at his home that injured a Collinsburg firefighter.

“Having a working smoke alarm increases your chance of safely evacuating a burning home by 50%,” Tobin said.

Regardless of whether a smoke alarm sounds when the “test” button is pressed, it should be replaced after a decade of service, Tobin said.

“Smoke alarms lose their effectiveness beyond 10 years,” he said. “It may work when you test it , but it’s probably not going to detect smoke. Newer alarms are actually dated. If it’s so old it doesn’t’ have a date on it, it needs to be replaced.”

According to a social media post, Collinsburg and West Newton fire departments plan to alert residents about the May 11 alarm distribution by placing door hangers on homes.

Anyone in need of a smoke alarm in the targeted communities who doesn’t receive one may contact the local Red Cross office to request one, Tobin said.

According to Tobin, cooking is the most common cause of home fires, with home heating ranking as the next most frequent cause.

For residents to take advantage of the warning provided by a smoke alarm, they must have in place a plan for escaping from their home if a fire occurs, Tobin said. From the time the alarm sounds, “you have only two minutes on average to get out,” he said.

According to a report published in January by the National Fire Protection Association, smoke alarms were present in 74% of home fires reported to U.S. fire departments in 2012-16, and the alarms sounded in 53% of those fires.

Almost three of every five home fire deaths resulted from fires in homes with no smoke alarms (40%) or no smoke alarms that were working (17%).

Dead batteries caused 25% of smoke alarm failures.

Since October 2014, the Red Cross has installed more than 1.6 million free smoke alarms and has educated the residents of nearly 673,000 households on the importance of having and practicing home fire escape plans.