Have you checked the batteries in your smoke alarm lately?
Residents of Skipwith Farm community will be receiving new smoke alarms Saturday, according to a press release from the Williamsburg Fire Department.
The fire department, the local chapter of the Red Cross and the city’s codes and compliance division will be teaming up to go door-to-door and install smoke detectors.
The canvassing will take place between 9 a.m. and 1 p.m. Saturday. The Williamsburg Fire Department recently visited the neighborhood to place door hangers with information about the canvas.
In March, a family of five was displaced after an early morning fire destroyed a home in the Skipwith Farms community.
“A lot of people feel that something is not going to happen to them, so take the precaution early on,” Capt. Cary Middlebrook, who oversees Community Risk Reduction at the department, said following the fire. “You may feel like the event is never going to happen, but bad things happen to good people.”
According to the Red Cross, seven people die from home fires every day in the United States. Thirty-six more people suffer injuries from fires, and home fires cause $7 billion in property damage annually.
A working smoke alarm reduces the chances of dying in a home fire by 50 percent, the release stated. The Red Cross advises to test smoke alarms monthly and encourages families to create and practice a fire escape plan.
“Regardless of what people think, we want to reduce our responses to fire incidents, because that way we know we have a safe community,” Williamsburg Fire Chief William P. Dent said.
