Six Texas Cities to Receive Smoke Alarms

Firefighters in six Texas cities will be installing smoke alarms into the homes of low income and elderly residents thanks to this year’s “We’re Out to Alarm Texas” smoke alarm campaign. The program now in its fifth year has saved three lives and prevented the destruction of several homes across the state.

The Insurance Council of Texas (ICT) teams up with the State Fire Marshal’s Office, the Travelers Insurance Companies and First Alert to donate the smoke alarms to firefighters who install them and then monitor fire runs to these homes.

Eleven hundred smoke alarms have been donated this month to firefighters in El Paso, Waco, Farmers Branch, New Braunfels, Longview and Amarillo prior to the start of Fire Prevention Week (October 4 – 10).

The cities were chosen by the State Fire Marshal’s Office because of their high fire fatality count and the willingness of the fire department to install the smoke alarms into the homes of needy citizens. The smoke alarms are installed on a first-come, first-serve basis to homeowners in each city. Firefighters will install the smoke alarms and point out possible fire hazards in each home.

ICT, Travelers Insurance Companies and First Alert have donated more 5,000 smoke alarms to 14 Texas cities since the We’re Out to Alarm Texas smoke alarm campaign started in 2005. Within one year elderly residents in New Braunfels and Waco were rescued by firefighters after being alerted by donated smoke alarms to fires in their smoke filled homes.

ICT also donated 150 smoke alarms in 2008 to a 14 year old Boy Scout in Jefferson, Texas. Buck John wrote to the State Fire Marshal’s Office who contacted ICT with a request for enough smoke alarms to place one into the homes of every Meals on Wheels clients in Marion County. The request was fulfilled and it earned John his Eagle Scout award.

Source: The Insurance Council of Texas, www.insurancecouncil.org