Kidde Canada, a manufacturer of fire safety products, donated 3,000 smoke alarms to the Calgary Fire Department on Monday.
Deputy Fire Chief Ken Uzeloc said he’s grateful for the gift — valued at $115,000 — and the difference it will make in CFD initiatives that target the vulnerable.
“This is going to help augment our Home Safety Program, which we’ve been doing for 23 years now,” he said. “We’ve visited almost 458,000 homes in that time period, installed almost 30,000 smoke alarms and changed almost 20,000 batteries. So this is going to help us reach our goal of 500,000 homes in Calgary.”
When it comes to fire safety, education is key, Uzeloc said.
“A lot of people will buy a home and they see the smoke alarms up there, and they just think that they’re there and they’re always going to work,” he said.
“So we need to get out in those homes and educate people on how to test them, how to maintain them, and how to make sure they’re in a working condition, and if they’re not, then we’re there to help install some new ones or change the batteries and make sure that people are safe.
“You’ve got less than three minutes to get out safely nowadays — in new construction with all the plastics and the engineered floor systems — so the early warning you can get is done by a working smoke alarm.”
Sharon Cooksey, a fire safety expert with Kidde Canada, said the donation will help Calgarians who don’t have resources or access to smoke alarms.
“We don’t ever want a family to have to choose between food or fire safety, and that’s where this donation comes in and the hard work of the Calgary Fire Department,” she said.
“We know that working smoke alarms help save lives. In fact, it doubles your chance of escape in case of a home fire.”
Calgary and Toronto are the only two cities in Canada to receive this donation, according to the CFD.
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