CLARKSVILLE, Tenn. – Clarksville Fire Rescue is taking part in “Get Alarmed Tennessee” by helping to install free smoke alarms in around 200 homes in the New Providence area.
Plans are for dozens of volunteers to visit homes starting around 9:00 a.m. Thursday, July 30 in the area of Shelby, Cave and Adkins Streets along with Maple Street. The volunteers will be passing out smoke alarms and in many cases volunteers will also be installing the smoke alarms in the homes.
Clarksville Fire Marshall, Ray Williams, talked about the importance of every home having a smoke alarm. “We’ve already had three deaths in the month of July, and every situation did not have a working smoke alarm. So we want to encourage that and hopefully us getting out with this will help do that,” said Williams.
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Williams added that having a working smoke alarm in your home is the first line of defense for your safety in a fire situation. If you don’t have a smoke alarm then chances are you may end up dying in a house fire and this is what we want to prevent.
The reason the locations in New Providence were chosen is because most of the homes in the area did not have smoke alarms when the homes were originally built. Williams said smoke alarms didn’t get popular until the 1970’s and most of the homes are 50-60 years old.
“Get Alarmed Tennessee” is a program organized by the Tennessee State Fire Marshal’s Office and supported by the American Red Cross. Since the campaign began in 2012 over 81,000 smoke alarms have been handed out in high-risk areas of the state.