Ken Rodriguez
San Antonio Express-News
Copyright 2007 San Antonio Express-News
All Rights Reserved
A house fire on North Hackberry Street recently claimed the life of 47-year-old Martha Fragoso Campos.
When firefighters arrived at her home before dawn Feb. 4, they found a disarmed smoke detector, its lid hanging open.
The fire broke out in the kitchen. Campos was found away from the kitchen.
An arson lieutenant at the scene told the Express-News a working smoke detector would have saved Campos.
The lieutenant’s assessment echoes a disturbing refrain.
Four fire deaths have been reported this year. In each case, detectors were either absent or not working. At this rate, San Antonio will surpass last year’s grim total of 17 fire deaths.
In all the fatal incidents dating to the start of 2006, firefighters have found only one working detector.
There is a flip side to this tragic trend. But it is not often told.
On Dec. 9, a smoke alarm in a North Side apartment awoke two young brothers, one 8 years old, the other 6. The boys roused their parents and siblings around 5:30 a.m.
It took four trucks and 32 firefighters to extinguish the blaze. All seven family members escaped unharmed.
That happy ending didn’t make headlines. But it underscored a truth: Detectors save lives.
There’s no excuse for not having one. If you can’t afford a detector -- and some cost as little as $5 -- the fire department will deliver one and install it at no charge.
The fire department has installed almost 4,000 free detectors since Jan. 1.
District Fire Chief Randy Jenkins credits the surge in requests to a media campaign and the late November death of state Sen. Frank Madla.
“When he died we had 400 calls in four hours,” Jenkins says.
In January, one South Side woman wanting a smoke detector didn’t call the fire department. She called me. I put Jenkins in touch with the woman, Mary Morales, who is scheduled to receive an alarm shortly.
“When Madla died, my hair stood on end,” says Morales, 74. “I thought, ‘That could be me.’ I got scared.”
Morales did not act on her fear until more tragedy hit. She saw the charred remains of three homes on the South Side.
That was it. Morales needed a smoke alarm for her 42-year-old home. Then she heard about an elderly couple, Guadalupe and Carlota Garcia, who perished in a West Side blaze. “That really hurt,” Morales says.
Morales pays closer attention to fire fatalities than most. The stories have become so frequent, the detail of an absent or nonworking detector so familiar, they prompt few to act. And if the victim is not famous, a lesson is missed.
“When regular people die,” Jenkins says, “no one gets the message.”
To help spread the message, a local law firm has donated 26,000 smoke detectors. Jenkins says the fire department has roughly 22,000 left.
Consider the difference they can make:
On Jan. 19, a fire left a two-family home uninhabitable in Passaic, N.J. According to news reports, smoke filled a second floor bedroom just before 1 a.m.
Detectors sounded. Flames ripped through the top floor. Two dozen people escaped without injury.
Days earlier, a two-alarm fire ignited in a Berkeley, Calif. apartment complex. A smoke alarm awoke a sleeping woman around 3 a.m. A fire official said the detector saved her life.
The next time a fire death is reported, you can almost be certain responders will find no working alarm.
The difference between life and death can be a $5 purchase. Or one call for a free detector.