By: Julie Dosono
When we moved into the Bow Lake Senior Mobile home park less than a year ago, the first thing I asked my husband to do was install a smoke detector, because I know how deadly a mobile home fire can be.
Fast forward to Saturday, April 28, 2018, the day the Red Cross came to the Bow Lake Mobile Home Park for one of their Sound the Alarm Installation Events.
When the Red Cross first knocked on my door, I didn’t open it. I had just woken up, was still in my night clothes, and assumed they were solicitors of some sort. It wasn’t until they drove away that I realized who had been knocking, and I didn’t want to miss out.
I know the Red Cross is an organization you can trust, so I reached out to the local Red Cross on Facebook and invited them back. A team returned almost immediately. They spent the whole day in our community, going door-to-door, and putting in smoke detectors for free.
It was important to me to have our home inspected – to check and see if we had enough smoke alarms in our mobile and if they were installed correctly.
There was a fatal fire in our park last month and it had been weighing heavily on my mind ever since. You can read about it on the Puget Sound Regional Fire Authority Facebook page. My husband and I saw smoke on the day it happened and ran there as fast as we could. By the time we arrived the mobile was completely engulfed in flames.
You hear about mobile home fires a lot but to witness one first-hand was devastating. They burn so fast. This is what got me thinking about our fire alarms. The fire department met with some of our residents to explain what happened in the fire and said that the Red Cross would be coming out to install smoke alarms with 10-year batteries.
Red Cross volunteers along with a firefighter from Puget Sound Fire toured our home, told me what to do in case of a fire and help me make plans for an evacuation route.
They told me a smoke alarm was needed in each bedroom (which I didn’t know) so they installed three new smoke alarms, one in each bedroom and one in our bonus family room. They also replaced our old alarms with the new 10-year battery versions.
I am so grateful for this service and the time they spent in our home. They were very kind and courteous they also told me where to put my CO2 detector near the kitchen since I have gas heat and a gas stove and we had it in the wrong location.
As they were leaving I asked them if I could take their picture for my Facebook page they gladly obliged. We now have five smoke alarms in our mobile home – I feel safer and relieved.
Do you need new smoke alarms in your home?
Please visit: GetASmokeAlarm.org and let us know!
American Red Cross NW Region 