There's a need in the
community that presents itself, and individuals must step up to meet
it, according to Madison Township firefighter Juan Alcala,
secretary/treasurer for the Morgan County Professional Fire Fighters
Union, Local 4555.
The Madison
Township Fire Department makes appearances each year at the
elementary school with the smokehouse demonstrations and discussions
on fire safety.
North Madison
Elementary principal Larry Schneider said in November of 2006, fire
department representatives learned that about 60 of the students
didn't even have working smoke alarms. And those who had them,
didn't have enough.
"We're always
preaching to them about changing the batteries of their smoke
alarms. We told them to use their birthdays as an opportunity to
remind their parents about changing the batteries," Alcala said.
"As we were talking
with the kids, we found out that many of them lived in three-bedroom
homes, but had only one working smoke detector or none at all,"
Alcala said.
Firefighters handed
out questionnaires to those students to find out where or if they
had smoke detectors. Alcala said he began a letter-writing campaign
to purchase the detectors or have them donated to families that
needed them. Thanks to local business owners and smoke alarm
companies, First Alert and Kidde, the union received 60 smoke
detectors.
"We got $300 in
donations for those 60, and then Kidde donated 40 more, so we have
100 of them now," Alcala said. He said First Alert and Kidde both
have programs for donating smoke detectors.
"The Residential
Building Code requires that a smoke alarm be installed in each
bedroom and one on each level of the home," Madison Township fire
marshal Kenny Vanslyke said.
He added that there
are two kinds of smoke detectors; those run by ionization sensors
and those with photoelectric sensors.
The ones provided
for North Madison students have ionization sensors, which are more
sensitive to small particles in the air - like from a flaming
substance. The photoelectric detectors are sensitive to smoldering
fires. First Alert recommends using both kinds.
