By Pervaiz Shallwani
Newsday
NEW YORK — A few blocks from one of the deadliest fires in recent New York City history, fire Commissioner Nicholas Scoppetta yesterday unveiled his department’s largest ever safety campaign aimed at educating the public — particularly newly arrived immigrants — about the need to have and maintain working smoke detectors.
The six-month campaign, called “Sound the Alarm,” features television commercials, newspaper advertisements, public service announcements and a grassroots program in 25 different languages, Scoppetta said.
“This is a message that has to be hammered home continually; just keep repeating that message and make sure that everyone recognizes the importance of it,” he said.
Scopetta unveiled the initiative at a firehouse in the Woodbridge section of the Bronx, near where a blaze on Woodycrest Avenue took the lives of nine children and one adult last March. The fire started when an overloaded space heater cord sparked a fast-moving fire that engulfed the four-story brownstone.
Fire officials said the deaths might have been avoided had there been fire alarms in the apartments.
According to New York Fire Department statistics, roughly 75 percent of the 90 fire deaths last year were in structures that had no smoke detectors or had detectors that were not working because the batteries were dead or had been removed.
Scopetta said the campaign, which includes the distribution of 145,000 batteries, is funded by a $900,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
Paradoxically, the initiative comes as the number of yearly deaths attributed to structure fires is the lowest on record. An average of 98 people have been killed annually over the past six years, fire officials said.
In particular, though, the fire department hopes to educate new immigrants, Scopetta said.
“We have a lot new citizens in New York City. We always do,” he said. “And there are people who don’t speak the language, people who don’t understand what we are talking about.”
One 30-second announcement, which has been airing on Spanish- and English-language TV stations, features a frightened family awakened by a fire alarm and scurrying out of their home. It ends with the announcer intoning gravely: “When your smoke alarm goes off, you have minutes to get out. But if your battery is dead, then most likely so are you.”
For years, the department has had a program targeting neighborhoods hit by a fire, to educate residents afterward about fire safety. That program includes giving out batteries and smoke detectors, and showing people how they work.
Officials also give people tips on what to do in case of a fire, such as making sure to shut the door behind them when leaving the room.
Image from Citywide News Network - A fatal fire in the Bronx last March that killed 10 immigrants, nine of them children, helped spur a safety campaign.
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