Paul Bass Photo
Red Cross CT President Mario Bruno. Behind him from left: Mayor Toni Harp, Alders Jody Ortiz and Sal DeCola, emergency management chief Rick Fontana.
The Red Cross and the fire department are ready to come to your house to put out a fire — before it starts.
The two agencies are teaming up to sweep through town on Saturday, April 28, to install — for free — smoke detectors in up to 1,000 homes. They’ll also do free fire safety inspections.
Officials held a press conference at Grand Avenue fire headquarters Thursday afternoon urging New Haveners to sign up now for the free inspections and installations by clicking on this website or by calling 877 – 287-3327. They said 200 people have signed up so far.
More than 2,000 people a year die in house fires in the country, reported Connecticut Red Cross President Mario Bruno. He said working smoke detectors would have prevented many of those fires. Hence the Red Cross’s national “Sound the Alarm” campaign, of which the upcoming New Haven sweep is part. The Red Cross has installed one million detectors nationwide under the program over the past four years, Bruno said. The goal is to install another 2.5 million over the next five years, which would reduce fire deaths an estimated 25 percent,
Fire Chief John Alston Jr.
“I can’t tell you how many times I go to a house” to respond to a fire and learn that either it lacks smoke detectors or the detectors had dead batteries, Fire Chief John Alston Jr. said. The new detectors being distributed on the 28th will have lithium batteries that should last 10 years, he said.
The sweep “doesn’t cost the city of New Haven one dime in taxes,” Alston added.
Click on the video to watch the full press conference.
