Fire Dept. and Red Cross Home Fire Safety Campaign

On April 16, 2016 The Linden Fire Department in conjunction with The American Red Cross held a Home Fire Safety Campaign in parts of Linden’s 5th and 8th wards. The Red Cross went door to door canvassing these wards informing residents of the free smoke detector install being offered. If the resident needed smoke detectors the Linden Fire Department, with off duty members from Linden’s FMBA locals 34 & 234, would follow the Red Cross volunteers doing an evaluation of the home and installing what smoke detectors were necessary to make the home safe. The free detectors were donated through a Red Cross Home Fire Safety Campaign. The Fire death rate in homes with working smoke alarms is 51% less than the rate for a home without this protection. An estimated 890 lives could be saved each year if all homes had working smoke alarms. Properly installed and maintained smoke alarms save lives and protect against injury and loss due to fire. The free detectors being installed are sealed units with a 10 year battery, insuring that the detector is operational for years to come.
This was the 3rd install day held in Linden, the other 2 were in April and August of last year in parts of the 4th, 5th and 8th wards. In addition to the detectors, the Red Cross was passing out home safety information to residents and the Linden Fire Department was informing them of their File of Life Program. A program that gathers resident’s pertinent medical information that is kept in their home to help expedite an ambulance call by making the information readily available to EMS workers. If residents were not home, missed the canvassing or are in a different ward and would like free detectors installed in their home, they can call Linden Fire Prevention (908) 474-4560 to set up a date for an install.
The day was a huge success, installing 112 detectors in 54 homes and canvassing 720 homes with fire safety information bringing the total for this campaign to close to 300 detectors installed in over 150 homes with close to 2000 homes canvassed. The day could not have been a success without the many volunteers from the Red Cross, Linden High School’s Red Cross and ROTC programs doing the information canvassing and Linden’s FMBA Locals 34 & 234 doing the detector installs.