Printed Sep 03, 2024 • Final up to date Sep 03, 2024 • 3 minute learn
The Saugeen Shores Fireplace Division Public Training Division launched the ‘SAFE’ – Smoke Alarms for Everybody – program August 29 on the Port Elgin station.
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Hopefully, most of the estimated 4,500 Saugeen Shores households that should not have working smoke/CO/ detectors can be visited in coming weeks by members of the Saugeen Shores Fireplace Division Public Training Division (PED) that launched its ‘SAFE’ – Smoke Alarms For Everybody – marketing campaign August 29.
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Fireplace Chief Ed Melanson mentioned the objective is to teach, not ticket, and PED members will supply new alarms/detectors, to households, a program partially funded via donations.
On the SAFE kickoff on the Port Elgin station, Chief Melanson mentioned PED members have gone on door-to-door take a look at runs a number of instances in latest weeks to speak about fireplace security together with extinguishers, escape routes and alarms.
“We have been donated resources from various sources and we’re going door-to-door in areas that could be at higher risk in our community – areas that have exhibited fires in the past – and talked to them and made sure they had working smokes, and if they don’t, we install alarms,” Chief Melanson mentioned.
Each Ontario residence should have a working smoke alarm on each storey and, together with carbon monoxide detectors, exterior all sleeping areas. If constructed after 2014, there have to be smoke alarms with strobes in every bed room, and smoke/CO/strobe exterior of every sleeping space.
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Statistics present that on common, solely 30 per cent of Ontario households have compliant alarms/detectors. There are roughly 6,900 households in Saugeen Shores which implies roughly 4,500 native households should not have compliant alarms/detectors – a determine the chief finds “unbelievable”.
“Lots of people have smoke alarms that are working and compliant – they test them but they may be outdated – they only last for 10 years, so we may find some that are out of date or are in the wrong spot,” Melanson mentioned, including “that might not be the fault of people, but just a lack of knowledge.”
Areas to be visited embody older neighbourhoods the place most residences would have battery-powered, not interconnected wired alarms.
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Pointing to the now one-year-old PED, Chief Melanson proudly mentioned members have made fireplace security schooling visits to native retirement/previous age houses and carried out door-to-door schooling campaigns, together with emergency preparedness.
Members of the Saugeen Shores Fireplace Division Public Training Division kicked off the ‘SAFE’ – Smoke Alarms for Everybody – program August 29 on the Port Elgin station. Readily available have been, from left: Fireplace Chief Ed Melanson, Division Chief Jenna Stewart, Division deputy chief Gary Smith, Public Educators Jimmy McNeil, Paul MacKinnon, ‘Sparky’, Richard Mommersteeg, Darcy McDermid, Ian Bester, Deputy Fireplace Chief Rob Atkinson and Deputy Mayor Dianne Huber.
“Recently, they went out three nights after a fire and did 61 visits to houses in the area to make people aware of the benefits of having working smoke alarms and detectors,” Chief Melanson mentioned.
In that August 15 early morning incident, {an electrical} fireplace induced important injury however no accidents to a house within the Gustavus/Kaake space of Port Elgin.
“There was a heightened sense of fire safety and the idea that it can happen to anybody and was a good time to ensure that people were fire safe,” he mentioned.
Whereas firefighters discovered smoke/CO detectors within the rubble of that fireplace, Melanson mentioned they couldn’t decide in the event that they have been working on the time of the blaze because it was so scorching a tv melted down a wall.
Roughly six households in that neighbourhood didn’t know that their alarms have been out-of-date.
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Deputy mayor Diane Huber, daughter of former Southampton fireplace chief, the late Doug Huber, mentioned the PED has been well-received by native college students at in-school and group occasions.
“And a lot of kids take messages home that their parents need to be told and sometimes it’s the kids telling the parents too because they hear good fire safety messages from these guys,” Huber mentioned, pointing to the PED crew, that features a number of ladies.
Chief Melanson mentioned when individuals discover a firefighter at their door in coming weeks, they need to know that “we are not coming to ticket, but we are coming to educate and help any way we can.”
So far, the response to PED members on the door has been welcoming and curious. A number of members mentioned in the course of the take a look at visits that they have been handled with respect on the door by individuals who have been receptive to fireplace security data.
Following a fireplace final month in Port Elgin’s Gustavus/Kaake neighbourhood, members of the Saugeen Shores fireplace division Public Training Division visited 61 homes to speak about fireplace security. Roughly six residents didn’t know their alarms have been out-of-date.
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