The City of Dillingham Fire Department received 2,000 smoke detectors from the Alaska Department of Public Safety, Fire and Life Safety this year. Now, they're offering them to residents through a city-wide installation event aimed at preventing fatal residential fires as the fire season approaches.
Leticia Swift is the EMS Prevention Officer for the Dillingham Fire Department. She says after a winter of low snowfall, the department is preparing for a high fire season this year.
“With no snow that means less water on the ground, less water in the tundra, the streams, everything. So everything's really dry,” Swift said. “And if that's the case, I would like to do everything possible to prevent, like a home in Dillingham from going up unintentionally, because accidents happen all the time to every single person.”
According to the Alaska Department of Public Safety, Fire and Life Safety, the rate of fatality per 1,000 home structure fires is about 60 percent lower in homes with working smoke alarms compared to homes without them.
The Dillingham Volunteer Fire Department and Rescue Squad will go door-to-door installing the free smoke detectors. Swift says they're doing the installation themselves to make sure the detectors end up where they’re supposed to—and not in a junk drawer.
“When we place them in certain areas of your house, it is most likely to save a life in the event of a fire,” said Swift. “So we put them outside of bedrooms, inside of bedrooms, around heating sources, laundry rooms- dryer fires are huge. That way, if any smoke is in the house, I have a very small delay time when those smoke detectors are going to go off.”
The smoke detectors provided through the program contain closed-cell batteries that last for ten years without needing replacement, though Swift says they will still beep every once if it hasn't been tested in a while.
The installation event will take place on April 5th. Residents can register through a link on the department's Facebook page or in person at the Dillingham Fire Department.
