Red Crossers Visited Communities Across Kentucky to Help #EndHomeFires for Sound the Alarm

A Red Crosser installs a smoke alarm
in a home in Madisonville, KY

This November, our Red Crossers visited communities across the Kentucky Region to make homes safer before the winter season by providing fire safety education and installing free smoke alarms in homes that needed them as part of our Sound the Alarm campaign. Thanks to the work of our volunteers and partners, we are proud to announce that we:

• Made 480 homes safer across Kentucky
• Installed more than 1,250 smoke alarms in homes that needed them
• Provided fire safety education to more than 1,200 of our neighbors

We are so thankful for the partners and supporters who made this possible! It is thanks to the efforts of our community that we could achieve our mission. Special thanks to Lexington Fire Department for their ongoing support of our Sound the Alarm campaign for the past several years.

Red Crossers prepare for a day of installing
smoke alarms in Eastern Kentucky

We would like to thank the following community partners for their help as we work to #endhomefires:

Western Kentucky Chapter

• Ohio Co. Fire Assoc.
• Ballard Co. FD
• Calloway FD
• Cuba FD
• Salem FD
• Goreville FD
• Alton Fire Department

South Central Kentucky Chapter:

• Franklin Simpson FD
• Glasgow FD

Bluegrass Area Chapter

• Corbin City FD
• Georgetown FD
• London City FD
• Madison Co. FD
• Nicholasville FD
• Shopville FD/Pongo FD
• Scott Co. FD
• Swiss Colony FD
• Winchester FD
• Woodford FD

Eastern Kentucky Chapter

• Cumberland City FD
• Harlan City FD
• Lynch FD
• Middlesboro FD
• Bath Co. FD
• Hazel Green FD
• Hazard City FD
• Lewis Co. EMA
• Menifee Co EMA
• Morehead City FD
• Benham FD
• Coon Creek FD

Louisville Area Chapter

• Pleasure Ridge Park FD
• Franklin Co. FD
• Simpsonville FD

Fire Prevention Week: Practice Escape Plans, Test Smoke Alarms

National Fire Prevention Week is October 6 to 12, and the American Red Cross urges everyone to practice their home fire escape plan and test their smoke alarms.

“As cold weather increases the risk of home fires, please prepare your family now during Fire Prevention Week,” said Trevor Riggen, senior vice president, Red Cross Disaster Cycle Services. “Install and test smoke alarms on every level of your home, and practice your escape plan until everyone can get out in two minutes or less.”

In a typical home fire, you may have as little as one to two minutes to escape safely from the time the smoke alarm sounds. Escape planning and practice can help you make the most of the time you have, giving everyone enough time to get out.

Plan ahead for your escape:

• Include at least two ways to get out of each room in your home fire escape plan.
• Select a meeting spot at a safe distance away from your home, such as your neighbor’s home or landmark like a specific tree in your front yard, where everyone can meet.
• Practice your escape plan until everyone can get out in two minutes or less.
• Install smoke alarms on every level of your home, placing them inside and outside bedrooms, and sleeping areas.
• Test smoke alarms monthly, and change the batteries at least once a year, if your model requires it.

Children are most at risk during fires. In fact, children under five are twice as likely as other people to die in a home fire. In addition to including them in practicing your escape plan, parents should teach their children what smoke alarms sound like and what to do when they hear one.

Home fires take seven lives each day in the U.S., most often in homes without working smoke alarms. That’s why the Red Cross is working with partners to install free smoke alarms in high-risk communities and help families create escape plans through its Home Fire Campaign, which launched five years ago in October 2014.

Over the past five years, the campaign has saved at least 642 lives across the country by installing nearly 2 million free smoke alarms and making more than 793,000 households safer from the threat of home fires. Learn more about preparing and preventing home fires here.

Red Cross Helps Louisville Family Prepare with Bedside Smoke Alarms

“Alright, we’re going to practice,” says Clair, a Disaster Program Manager for the Louisville Area Chapter Red Cross. She stands in the hallway of the Mansfield’s home, poised beneath one of the smoke alarms Red Cross volunteers had installed just a few weeks before.

In their rooms, Gabriella Mansfield, 8, and Estfeanie Mansfield, 10, giggle and nod. A sign language interpreter translates for Estfeanie and her mother, Sharonda Mansfield, who are both deaf, as they prepare to practice their fire escape plan for the first time.

Then, the smoke alarm sounds and triggers the bedside alarms to flash and vibrate in the sleeping spaces. Clair and the interpreter both sign in time to the sound of the smoke alarm as the girls and their mother quickly leave the house and race to get outside to their meeting spot.

Gabriella and Estfeanie creating a fire escape plan with Clair

Sharonda and three of her four children are deaf, and did not have working smoke alarms in their home. Working smoke alarms can cut the risk of dying in a home fire nearly in half. But those who are deaf or hard of hearing cannot depend on the sound of a regular smoke alarm to alert them to a fire. The Kentucky Red Cross is working to provide bedside smoke alarms for those who are deaf or hard of hearing: these smoke alarms have strobe lights and bed shakers to help alert residents in case of a fire. That’s why Sharonda reached out to the Red Cross through the Kentucky Commission on the Deaf and Hard of Hearing (KCDHH).

“The younger kids, I didn’t think they would know what to do if there was a fire.” Sharonda said.

With the help of a sign language interpreter from KCDHH, the Red Cross installed four alarms in the Mansfield home, including three bedside smoke alarms. Since her children were at school during the installation, the Red Cross made a special return visit a few weeks later to teach the children about fire and disaster safety, and helped the family come up with their fire escape plan. Together, Sharonda and her children talked about the possible escape routes they could take in case of a fire, and designated a tree in their front yard as their meeting place.

“Where would you go?” Sharonda asked the girls later, as they sat in their living room while Clair went over other fire and local disaster safety tips with the family. “Where do you run?”

“Outside!” Estfeanie replied, giggling with her sister.

José, another member of the Mansfield family, testing the bed-shaker portion of the bedside alarm

The Kentucky Red Cross is able to install these alarms part of our Home Fire Campaign in part because of a grant from the WHAS Crusade for Children that provides lifetone smoke alarms for children, as well as our partnership with KCDHH. KCDHH partnered with the Red Cross in 2018 and has also provided communication kits to use at shelters and during disasters. They also provide interpreter services, and help spread the word to the community about fire safety.

To learn more about our campaign to end home fires by installing smoke alarms and providing fire safety education across the country, click here.

Kentucky Red Cross and Kentucky Power Kick Off National Preparedness Month with AEP Foundation Grant

Each September, National Preparedness Month encourages Americans to be prepared for disasters in their homes, businesses and communities. Every 8 minutes, the Red Cross responds to a disaster, and the vast majority of these are home fires. One of the best ways to prepare for a home fire is to have working smoke alarms, which can reduce the risk of dying in a home fire by nearly 50 percent. On Wednesday, Kentucky Power awarded a $40,000 American Electric Power Foundation grant to the Kentucky Red Cross to support Home Fire Preparedness efforts and provide free smoke alarms in Eastern Kentucky.

“We’re making this important grant award today in recognition of National Prepa
redness Month,” said Kentucky Power President Brett Mattison. “The Red Cross responds to more than 300 home fires in Eastern Kentucky every year. This grant will allow them to help families prepare should disaster strike.”

The AEP Foundation grant will allow the Red Cross, volunteer fire departments, Kentucky Power volunteers and others to canvass low income areas and provide smoke alarms to those in need. Smoke alarm installations funded with the grant are planned for October in Greenup County and in Letcher County in spring 2020.

“With this generous donation from the American Electric Power Foundation homes will be made safer and lives will be saved,” said Debbie Ranier, executive director of the Eastern Kentucky Chapter of the American Red Cross. “Partners like Kentucky Power mean so much to this organization. We appreciate their time and generosity put into helping the American Red Cross carry out its mission daily. They are truly a part of our Red Cross Family.”

This week, a Red Cross emergency response vehicle funded with a previous $150,000 AEP Foundation grant left Ashland with the husband-wife volunteer team of Mike and Charlene Qualls for its first national disaster response. The vehicle, Eastern Kentucky’s first, was dispatched to North Carolina in response to Hurricane Dorian.

Thank you, Kentucky Power, for your generosity and your commitment to making our community safer!

Learn more about our Home Fire Campaign here.

Smoke Alarms and Fire Safety Education Help Save Family of Nine

The Jackson-Perry Family

Every day, seven people die in home fires. The Red Cross wants to prevent these needless tragedies – that’s why we launched our Home Fire Campaign in 2014. As part of this campaign, volunteers work alongside fire departments and other local groups, canvassing at-risk neighborhoods to install free smoke alarms, replace batteries in existing alarms, educate families about fire prevention and safety, and fundraise to help sponsor this life-saving mission.

One Louisville family of nine is a testament to the importance of our campaign. Two years ago, on a warm afternoon in late April, the Perry family was enjoying the spring weather outside on their front porch while their grandson napped in their basement. Their family time was interrupted by the harsh sound of their new smoke alarms sounding from inside the house.

Alerted by the alarms, the Perrys noticed smoke coming from the basement, and were able to quickly get their grandson out of the house. Once they were away from the house and gathered at their designated meeting spot, they called 911. Later, they would learn that an electrical fire had started in their basement.

Just weeks before, on April 8, Red Cross and General Electric volunteers in Louisville had visited the Perrys as a part of the Mayor’s Give a Day week of service. Bonnie Perry recalls seeing Red Cross volunteers canvassing her neighborhood that day and inviting them in to install alarms in her home.

“[The volunteer] said, ‘Oh, we’re installing smoke detectors. Do you need some?’ and I said ‘I sure do!’” Mrs. Perry said. “They put one in each bedroom and in the hallway, and thank God they were installed.”

The volunteers also spoke to the Perrys about home fire safety, and helped the family come up with an escape plan. Mrs. Perry stated that the fire escape plan was the reason her family got out safely. She also credited the early warning of the smoke alarms for giving them enough time to get her grandson out of the house and call the fire department before the fire spread to the rest of their home.

”Without the Red Cross, two, three, maybe five of us wouldn’t have been here.” Mrs. Perry said. “We were so blessed that everyone got out safely. The Lord must have sent the American Red Cross to install these alarms.”

Over 550 lives have been saved in the United States since the start of our Home Fire Campaign, including 57 lives in Kentucky and Southern Indiana.

Learn how you can get involved by visiting soundthealarm.org

Lives Saved in Fayette County Thanks to Home Fire Campaign

It’s a fact: Early warning from a working smoke alarm can cut the risk of death by home fire in half.

For one Fayette county family, that statistic hits close to home. Late one night in early December, Cassie Bell and her family woke to the shrill sound of their smoke alarms warning them of danger.
Alerted by the alarm, Bell went downstairs to find her kitchen filled with smoke and a fire burning from the toaster. The family’s cats had jumped on the toaster, triggering it to heat up and catch fire to mail that had fallen on top of it.

The Bell Family

“I was able to put out the fire with a throw blanket,” said Bell. “I can only imagine if we had not had those smoke detectors installed and the fire given the opportunity to grow.”

Just a year earlier, Red Cross volunteers and local firefighters had visited the Bell home to install free smoke alarms as part of our Home Fire Campaign. The Home Fire Campaign was launched in 2014 in an effort to reduce the number of lives lost to home fires by installing free smoke alarms and providing fire safety education in at-risk neighborhoods.

Volunteers helped the Bell family create an escape plan and review a home fire safety checklist. Before their visit, the family did not have working smoke alarms. Bell had been told of the free smoke alarm program by a former fire department paramedic after a local fire fatality. Determined to make her home safe for herself and her daughters, Bell scheduled an appointment with the Lexington Fire Department, a partner of the Red Cross, to have them installed.

“I 100 percent know those alarms waking us up saved my house and my family,” Bell said. “We live on a very limited budget, and I know if we had to have made those expenses, I might have made the wrong decision in [not] getting them installed. Thankfully, the American Red Cross, the fire department and kind individuals who donated took that worry off our plate.”

Over 500 lives have been saved in the United States since the start of our Home Fire Campaign, including 57 lives in Kentucky and Southern Indiana.

Join us in making our community safer across Kentucky and Southern Indiana at soundthealarm.org, or visit redcross.org/givingday to help us help the families who have been impacted by a home fire or other disaster.

Bluegrass Area Chapter Sounds the Alarm about Fire Safety

Written by: Barry Bronson, Bluegrass Area Chapter

Nearly 200 Red Cross volunteers handed out smoke alarms and helped educate Lexington residents on fire safety Saturday, all part of the Red Cross Sound the Alarm campaign.

It was all hands on deck Saturday as volunteers received marching orders for the
Lexington Sound the Alarm campaign for the Red Cross. 

One volunteer team heard what many of the volunteers and fire fighters would hear in the course of the busy day.

“I’ve lived in this house for 17 years and have never known if the smoke alarms were working or not,” said Ms. June Jones when volunteers installed two smoke alarms in her northside home. 

The team visiting Ms. Jones included Manny Mora, Kevin Lum, Rosie Gray and team captain Kathy Hoff. Ms. Hoff has been a Red Cross volunteers for 49 years!

Kevin Lum and Manny Mora help install a smoke alarm Saturday.

Volunteer Manny Mora installed an alarm along with Kevin Lum.

Learn more about our Sound the Alarm campaign at soundthealarm.com/kentucky.

#MyStoryMonday: Kenny Settles

Kenny tests a smoke alarm during a Home Fire Campaign install

Kenny Settles is a local volunteer who helps fill many roles at the Louisville Area Chapter. Kenny helps as the ERV Lead for the Louisville area; he even calls up other volunteer drivers to verify availability for events that need people. He also drives to Evansville a few times a week as a Blood Services Transportation specialist. 

Kenny also helps support the special events in Louisville, like the Wrapped in Red Gala and installs smoke alarms in community homes as a Homefire Campaign Volunteer. Thank you so much for all that you do, Kenny!

If you would like to find out more about joining the Red Cross as a volunteer, please visit www.redcross.org/volunteer