Seven people die from house fires across the nation each day according to the American Red Cross. It says simply having a smoke detector could save lives.
"We installed alarms into a trailer and about two weeks later there was a fire at that trailer," said John Cummins, senior disaster program manager for the Red Cross. "That woman credited the Red Cross almost immediately when the fire department showed up that she had heard her smoke detectors and she got out of the home. One of the other things that she had to say was the fact that she kept remembering us telling her not to go back into the home for any reason. Though she lost one of her fires in the fire, she was able to make it out alive."
Cummins said the program has only been in Lubbock since October but volunteers have already put in nearly 600 alarms with more coming over the summer.
Yvette Gomez said she is taking advantage of the program.
"It was just nice for them to contact people randomly to see if they would be interested in this so they can have their house safe and in case of a fire they would know an exit plan and have everyone out safe then sorry," Gomez said.
If you need a smoke detector in your home, call the Red Cross.
"There's no requirements to get an alarm from us," Cummins said. "It's a free service. All they need to do is call the Red Cross here at the office and make an appointment with Judy. She'll get them on the list and when we have teams that come in every month or so we will call them and set up an actual date and time that we will be in their area and put alarms in their home."
