Videos From After The Fire Outreach

Personnel from MCFRS went door to door on Thursday in a Leisure World apartment complex checking residents smoke alarms, handing out safety information, as well as answering any questions or concerns after Wednesday’s fatal fire.

Learn more about the fire here (photos): Fatal Fire in Silver Spring

Below, are two videos from the other day.  In the first video Captain David Pazos explains the After the Fire program and reminds everyone to check their smoke alarms.

The next video shows Master Firefighter Dave Newman interacting with a local resident and what typically occurs when we knock on the door.  

Firefighters Going Door-to-Door in White Oak Neighborhood This Morning

This morning, Thursday, September 15, 2011, between 10 AM – 12 PM local fire-rescue crews from the Montgomery County Fire and Rescue Service will be going door-to-door in the neighborhood, 11400 block of December Way, where a large fire occurred very early this morning. Uniformed firefighters will be handing out fire and injury prevention information, offering to check smoke alarms and replacing batteries or smoke alarms if needed.

Having a functional smoke alarm is one of the simplest, most effective ways to reduce tragic deaths and injuries from fire. In fact, working smoke alarms nearly cut in half the risk of dying in a home fire. Fire Chief Richard Bowers notes, “The simplest thing a family can do to protect themselves from fire is to have working smoke alarms, on every level of their home, and to have a fire escape plan.”

An Extra Effort After A Fire

I wanted to make everyone aware of an extra effort made by personnel assigned to our Fire Station 31 yesterday. Our fire trucks were sent to Tobytown Drive for smoke coming from a town house. Units arrived on scene to find fire in the flue of a malfunctioning furnace. The fire was extinguished and fire fighters found flue from furnace to be significantly clogged.

Based on these findings, they planned a door to door saftey check in the neighborhood that same day to try and make sure smoke alarms were working and that homes did not have any carbon monoxide buildup (which can result from a clogged flu).  See the Google Map street view below as this is a new feature we are trying.  You can walk the neighborhood as well.  (If no map is visible it is because there is a high volume of traffic on the Google site.  Just click on "View larger map" link and it will come up)

View Larger Map
Led by Captain Troy Lipp, crews from Enging 731 and Truck 731 walked door to door to each home on Tobytown Drive and checked the homes (and around the furnaces) for carbon monoxide emmisions and made sure each home had working smoke alarms.  They also made sure to distribute furnace safety information to all 25 homes on the street.


All in all MCFRS personnel:

MET WITH 14 OCCUPANTS


DISTRIBUTED LITERATURE AT: 25 RESIDENCES


TESTED: 24 SMOKE DETECTORS


INSTALLED: 3 NEW SMOKE DETECTORS


INSTALLED: 2 NEW BATTERIES

Many thanks to Captain Lipp and the crew at Fire Station 31 for being proactive and attempting to prevent any future 9-1-1 calls and making 25 homes in the county just a little bit safer for the holiday's! 
 
As always, I hope everyone out there STAYS SAFE!  Bill Delaney