With a recent fatal fire occurring in Southold, along with the annual fall campaign "Change your Clock, Change Your batteries" which encourages homeowners to change the batteries in smoke detectors during the seasonal time change, the Southold Town Fire Chiefs Council felt the need to stress the importance of having a smoke detector in every home as the holiday season approaches.

Communities nationwide witness tragic home fire deaths each year, but, everyone can work together to help reduce the number of home fire fatalities. Approximately every three hours a home fire death occurs somewhere in the nation and 66 percent of those occur in homes without working smoke alarms. Non-working smoke alarms rob residents of the protective benefits home fire safety devices were designed to provide. The most commonly cited cause of non-working smoke alarms: worn or missing batteries.

Additionally, the International Association of Fire Chiefs recommends that smoke alarms in homes should be replaced every 10 years and having both ionization and photo electric smoke alarms are best to alert people to all types of home fires.

With this in mind, the Southold Town Fire Chiefs have teamed up with Chris Manfredi of Allstate in Southold, and the First Alert Corporation, in order to distribute FREE smoke detectors to area residents to help ensure that there is a working smoke detector in every home.

Both Companies have made generous donations to help make this program possible.

So far, the Council has been working with Karen McLaughlin of the Southold Town Human Resource center and Senior Services as well as local schools to help identify and distribute detectors to homes that need them.

On Thursday November 10th, the Southold Town Fire Chiefs Council began distributing the first of three hundred available smoke detectors at the monthly meeting Southold Senior Citizens Club at the Peconic Recreation center on Peconic Lane.

Representatives from the Southold Town Chiefs Council, the Local Fire Departments and Chris Manfredi to Allstate were on hand to distribute the smoke detectors.

Over 80 free smoke detectors were distributed on that morning.

Free smoke detectors will also be distributed to each fire house throughout the township and will be available there for anyone who is interested.

Anyone in need of a smoke detector in their home is encouraged to contact or stop at your local Fire Department for more information.

We would like to remind everyone that at a minimum each residence should have working smoke detectors placed on every floor of the home and outside each sleeping area.

Detectors should be tested monthly and batteries should be changed twice a year when you change your clocks for daylight savings time.

The Southold Town Fire Chiefs Council as well as all of the Volunteer Firefighters of Southold Town would like to wish the community a safe and healthy holiday season.

Thank You to Chris Mafredi of Allstate and the First Alert Corp. for helping to make this program possible.

Links:
First Alert - http://www.firstalert.com/
Allstate - http://www.facebook.com/AllstateInsuranceSoutholdNY
http://www.allstate.com/
Southold Town Fire Chiefs - http://www.southoldtownchiefs.com/