DAWSONVILLE - Dawson County's Deputy Fire Chief says despite a decrease in funding, fire departments can't decrease their devotion to fire safety and prevention.
Deputy Chief Tim Satterfield wrote a letter to fellow fire officials earlier this month, asking them to go out of their way to do things like maintain fire safety programs in schools and randomly check people's smoke alarms inside their home.
"Nationally about 1 percent of our budget goes to fire prevention and probably less than 2 percent of our personnel go to fire prevention, so I was challenging them to get more people out on the street," said Satterfield.
He said that includes checking people's smoke detectors whenever they go out on a call.
"Just having a working smoke detector could probably reduce the death rate by 50 percent," said Satterfield.
Satterfield says the number of fire-related deaths are astounding-- especially considering that only around 20 percent of of calls firefighters respond to are actual blazes. He said roughly 210 fire-related deaths have been reported nationwide since the start of the new year.
Monday
November 25th, 2024
2:47AM
