For the third year in a row, the local American Red Cross and the City of Bend Fire Department are partnering to save lives by installing smoke alarms in homes that need them in Bend. On Saturday, April 8, starting at 8am more than a dozen Red Cross volunteers and firefighters will go door-to-door in the Pines Mobile Home Park in Bend to install free smoke alarms and deliver fire safety information.
The Red Cross installs free smoke alarms in homes that need them and has installed more than 11,000 smoke alarms in Oregon and Southwest Washington since 2014. Five lives have been saved in this area as a result of Red Cross installed smoke alarms.
“Prepared families are safe families,” said Cyndi Dahl, executive director for the Central and Eastern Oregon Chapter of the American Red Cross. “Take the time to make sure you have working smoke alarms and have discussed fire escape planning with your loved ones. The Red Cross provides free resources to help facilitate this process and will visit your home free of charge to help you be ready for disasters big and small.”
“The fire department has a number of responsibilities, with one of the most visible being responding to fires and other emergencies, but we also have a responsibility to provide fire prevention,” said Larry Medina, Oregon State Fire Marshal and Deputy Chief of Fire Prevention for the City of Bend Fire Department. “If there was only one thing we could do to increase home fire safety, it would be to have a smoke alarm installation campaign. We wanted to partner with the Red Cross to make sure our community is protected with working smoke alarms and have the information necessary to maintain working smoke alarms in their home.”
In past years as part of the same campaign, the Red Cross and the City of Bend Fire Department have focused smoke alarm installation efforts in communities identified as having a higher incidence of home fire-related injuries. Past events have resulted in about 100 smoke alarms being installed in a single day. The goal to install 300 alarms makes the April 8 event the largest in the campaign’s three-year history.
If you would like to participate in this event, call (541) 749-4197 to RSVP for the event.
WHAT: Red Cross Smoke Alarm Installation Event
WHERE: Bend Fire — South Station
61080 Country Club Dr., in Bend, OR
WHEN: Saturday, April 8, 2017, starting at 8 a.m.
MEDIA AVAILABILITY: Deputy Fire Chief Larry Medina, City of Bend Fire Department Public Information Officer Dave Howe and Red Cross Executive Director Cyndi Dahl will be available for media interviews at 9 a.m. at Bend Fire South Station.
MAKE A PLAN
You may only have two minutes to escape when a fire occurs, but most people mistakenly believe they have more than twice as long to get out. The Red Cross recommends that households develop a fire escape plan and practice it at least twice a year with everyone who lives in the home. People should know two ways to escape from every room and designate a safe place to meet outside the home in case of a fire. Discuss the plan with everyone in the household and practice until every member of your household — including children — can escape in less than two minutes
RED CROSS HOME FIRE CAMPAIGN
Seven times a day someone in this country dies in a fire. The Red Cross has been working to reduce that number through its Home Fire Campaign, a multi-year effort to reduce the number of home fire deaths and injuries by 25 percent. Launched in October of 2014, the Red Cross and thousands of campaign partners have helped save numerous lives through the effort, as well as installing more than a quarter million smoke alarms in homes all across the country.
HOW TO HELP
Join the Red Cross effort to save lives, reduce injuries and cut down on needless losses from home fires by making a financial donation by visiting redcross.org or calling 1-800 RED CROSS. A gift to Home Fires enables the Red Cross to provide critical services to people impacted by home fires along with the lifesaving tools and information to support prevention efforts.
Regional Director
Communications & Marketing
American Red Cross
Cascades Region
(503) 877 – 7121 (c)
monique.dugaw@redcross.org
