LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — When a smoke alarm starts blaring, you know things could turn dangerous if you’re not careful.
But it's even more of threat when the smoke alarm stops working.
That’s why Red Cross and the Pine Bluff Fire Department (PBFD) joined forces on Saturday to help address this problem in Pine Bluff.
“We’re going around door to door,” Guy Riggins with Red Cross said. “[We're] assessing need and trying to get smoke alarms in homes where folks might not have enough, or they might not have any smoke alarms. Or, perhaps they've got smoke alarms and the batteries no longer work.”
The event took place Saturday, but Riggins said the preparations have been underway for weeks.
“We've done some marketing,” Riggins said. “We've gone door to door, we've done some door knocking, some door hangers, and we worked with our partners in the community here to identify some good neighborhoods, as far as the need.”
After all those in attendance were split up into teams, Riggins and his group were first sent to the home of Dione Bates.
She said her home didn’t have any smoke alarms -- but that won’t be the case any longer.
“They came by my house and told me to set up an appointment if I was interested,” Bates said. “It’s good. We need these in the house. We have children. We want to make sure they're safe.”
That was another thing Saturday’s event focused on -- educating homeowners on fire safety, particularly with kids in mind.
Riggins and another volunteer discussed this with Bates while two others from the Pine Bluff Fire Department installed her smoke detectors.
“We talked about how we prepare the children in case of a fire,” Bates said.
While Saturday’s event may be over, Riggins said that this effort isn’t done, especially with the amount of home fires that happen each day.
“Every day we're dealing with folks that are experiencing home fires,” Riggins said. “So what we want to do is to try to lessen that impact in any way we can.”
Riggins added that anyone interested in getting new smoke detectors should call 1-800-RED-CROSS.