Jeannette groups, Red Cross install smoke detectors in city homes in wake of fatal fire

Michael Gendek had a sense of relief Saturday as volunteers updated the smoke detectors in his family’s second-story Jeannette apartment.

Since the family moved into the Harrison Avenue rental dwelling in October, he said, the state of the detectors “has just always been a concern. We just wanted to make sure everything is safe.”

The high stakes involved in all building fires was underlined on March 20, when five members of one family lost their lives in a house fire on Jeannette’s Guy Street.

Tyler J. King, 27, and four of his children — Kyson, 7; Kinzleigh, 6; Keagan, 3; and Korbyn, 1 month — were killed in the early morning fire. Two more children, ages 10 and 1, and their mother, Miranda John, King’s fiancee, made it out of the burning building alive.

That fire helped prompt Saturday’s distribution of free smoke detectors to about 25 homes in Jeannette — through a partnership of the Jeannette Fire Department, the Jeannette City School District and the Chestnut Ridge and Allegheny Mountains chapter of the Red Cross.

Following the fire and the resulting heartache in the community, Jeannette fire Chief Bill Frye said, local officials discussed the need for promoting fire safety through a detector distribution.

“We wanted to do it this year, but we didn’t want to do it right away, to let everybody heal,” Frye said. “But we wanted to do it before school starts back up and make sure everybody has (detectors).”

Volunteers planned to install an average of four new detectors for each of the households that responded to a district survey — all representing families with students attending the city schools.

Frye noted smoke detectors should be replaced after 10 years. One of the ones replaced in the Gendek home dated to 2003.

“I was very happy it came through,” Gendek said of the detector distribution. “I was waiting for a program to come up and get these all fixed.”

While a Jeannette ordinance requires landlords of all residential rental buildings to install hardwired smoke detectors in a common area of each floor, it doesn’t mandate detectors in bedrooms, Frye said.

Saturday’s campaign stressed installation of detectors in bedrooms as well as common areas.

To be most effective, Frye said, detectors should be placed on the ceiling or within 12 inches of the ceiling on an adjoining wall. It’s also best that they be placed at least 2 feet away from a doorway.

The detectors installed Saturday were obtained by the Red Cross through donations. Frye noted they are higher-quality versions with multiple senors for detecting smoke, and batteries with a 10-year-life expectancy.

Still, the Red Cross advises pushing the test button on a detector once a month to make sure it’s operating as intended.

Recipients of the detectors were provided a packet of additional fire safety tips from the Red Cross.

“What we’re trying to do is get people to think ahead of time and get them prepared,” said Red Cross volunteer Jane Austin of Monroeville.

She stressed the importance of making an escape plan in advance, with multiple exit routes from rooms and homes, and practicing those routes to make sure they will work during an emergency.

“You’ve got two minutes to get out of a burning house when those alarms go off,” she said. “That’s not the time to find out the escape route you thought you were going to use is blocked.”

Austin also urged people in a household to agree on a meeting place outside if they need to escape from a fire in their home and not to attempt to reenter the building.

“I know of at least two fatal fires in Pittsburgh this year where it’s been people going back in for pets or something else,” she said. “Once you’re out, you’re out.”

Jeannette fifth grade teacher Jennifer Kristoff led the effort to reach out to district families who desired smoke detectors.

In addition to the March fatal fire, she said, she was inspired to act by a January 2022 fire that extensively damaged the home of her sister and brother-in-law, Michelle and Jeffrey Miller.

Fortunately, in that case, everyone escaped safely from the home.

“An off-duty state trooper was driving by and woke them up,” Kristoff said. “I have a personal interest in making sure people are safe and have smoke alarms in their homes.”

Frye said Jeannette firefighters plan to continue the partnership with the school district and the Red Cross to supplement the fire department’s own year-round detector service.

He said city residents who are in need of a new smoke or carbon monoxide detector or who need help to change batteries in detectors can get help by calling the fire department business line, 724-527-4021.

The department is able to maintain a stock of detectors through local fundraising and donations.