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Articles
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| DCFD installing detectors this weekend |
VOICE writes, "DCFD installing detectors this weekend
BY PATTI SHEA
Members of the D.C. Department of Fire and Emergency Services will be going door-to-door in the Eastern Market neighborhood Saturday, Sept. 15, to ensure that residents have at least one smoke detector installed in their homes."
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The mission is a part of the department’s SAVU program — Smoke Alarm Verification and Utilization — that is free to all D.C. residents. There are two detectors that residents can choose from to be installed: one records a parent’s voice that would wake a child in the case of a fire; the second is a dual carbon monoxide-smoke detector.
Those who live between Seventh and 10th streets, SE, and North Carolina and Pennsylvania avenues — some 642 residences — can expect a knock on their doors between 9 a.m. and 3 p.m. this Saturday. The agency conducts the massive neighborhood installations based on call frequency, fatalities and total property dollars lost, Battalion Chief Ken Crosswhite said.
Crosswhite said the department changed its policy of handing out free detectors to residents who request them to installing the detectors for residents to insure that residents use them properly.
The chief added that inspectors will accompany the fire fighters to look for violations of city fire codes. Additionally, he said residents can have current detectors tested and cleaned by agency representatives. Crosswhite said each house may only receive one detector, even if the home already has devices installed at the owner’s expense.
The program is funded through private donations and the city’s general fund.
Crosswhite suggested households with children should have the voice detector installed because a fire prevention study showed that 96 percent of children tested woke up within 20 seconds of the alarm sounding, while only 58 percent woke up after 3 minutes with the standard smoke alarm.
Crosswhite said half of all fires and three-fifths of fire deaths are in homes without smoke detectors.
He also suggested that residents in older homes with gas appliances get the carbon monoxide-smoke alarm installed.
Department spokesman Alan Etter said the Eastern Market neighborhood cluster’s mass installation is the agency’s third round, and will continue to occur each month until every house in the city is checked.
“It’s going to take us some time,” Etter said. “But we’ll get it done.”
To get a detector installed, call (202) 727-1600 or visit www.fems.dc.gov.
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Posted on Sep 12, 2007 21:18pm.
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