It’s fire prevention week in St. Pete.
City Council awarded the St. Pete Fire Department a proclamation during its meeting Thursday with a focus on ensuring residents have working smoke detectors in every room and in common areas.
According to St. Pete Fire Chief Michael Domante, there was an average of nearly 18,000 structure fires each year between 2007 and 2011 nationwide with an average of 580 deaths resulting from them.
The department recommends residents test smoke detectors in their homes at least twice a year. Each year when the time seasonally changes, the department hangs banners in front of its 12 stations reminding residents to change their batteries at the same time they change their clocks.
Having functioning smoke detectors throughout homes can reduce the risk of death in a fire by half. For that reason, the department also recommends replacing detectors that are more than 10 years old.
“It’s a very small price to pay,” Domante said.
They call the education plan, “hear the beep where you sleep.” Most fire deaths occur during fires that happen when residents are sleeping and less able to recognize warning signs.
The department also recommends families have individual evacuation plans in place that the entire family knows and to conduct periodic drills to ensure everyone remembers what to do.
That includes identifying alternative ways out of the home if a regular exit is blocked by smoke or fire. That could be a window or back door. The department also said families should have a meeting place outside the home where every member of the household can meet to ensure all are out of the home safely.
Having that information immediately available to fire fighters when they respond to a fire can help teams better tackle the fire if they know they don’t have to pull anyone out.
Having multiple functioning smoke detectors not only helps minimize injuries and deaths, it also allows residents to identify a fire sooner and can potentially save more of the structure.
The fire prevention week coincides with Fire Prevention Month.
The timing was aptly chosen in honor of the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, in which some 300 people died and another 100,000 were left homeless.
