Thanks to a donation by the International Association of Firefighters Local 313 to the Morgantown Fire Department’s fire prevention section, the department has about 200 high quality smoke detectors to install while on calls.
Smoke alarms are critically important yet half of them have dead or no batteries, according to Morgantown firefighter Andy Dotson. Dotson is training as a deputy fire marshal and is responsible for the department’s public fire safety education. Almost two-thirds of fire deaths in the country occur in homes without working smoke alarms because of either disconnected or dead batteries.
“It’s kind of frightening,” Dotson said.
So, when the MFD is out on a call and firefighters notice there are no working smoke detectors, they make sure working ones are installed before they leave, Dotson said. With COVID, the usual funding sources that allow the department to buy the detectors weren’t possible and the department had run out of detectors to donate.
So, Local 313, as a body, decided to donate $1,500. President Mitchell Beall said the goal of that fund is to give back to the community and “this was a great opportunity for us to achieve that.”
“It’s just our little way for Local 313 to be able to give back to the Morgantown area,” he said.
The smoke detectors are sealed and have a 10-year battery life so the resident doesn’t need to swap out the batteries twice a year, Dotson said.
Dead batteries aren’t the only cause of non-working smoke detectors.
“There is a very big percentage of smoke alarms within the college age group where they are taking the batteries out of the alarms so they don’t activate,” Dotson said. “Or putting bags around them.”
That’s something that increased when vaping became popular.
“I’ve seen it in the dorms before,” he said. “It is a pretty significant problem with that demographic.”
Dotson added smoke alarms are tampered with more in the winter months because it’s cold and people don’t want to go outside to smoke.
