Red Cross Helps at Beecher City Fire, Discusses Other Helping Efforts

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Published on January 9 2018 3:14 pm
Last Updated on January 9 2018 3:15 pm

The American Red Cross Serving South Central Illinois responded to a home fire on the 500 block of West Poplar Street in Beecher City on Sunday. After a home fire, Red Cross volunteers ensure that everyone affected has a safe place to stay, food, clothing and emotional support. They are currently assisting three adults and three children.

Seven times a day someone in this country dies in a fire. The Red Cross has been working to reduce that number through its Home Fire Campaign, a multi-year effort to reduce the number of home fire deaths and injuries by 25 percent. Launched in October of 2014, the campaign has installed hundreds of thousands of smoke alarms in nearly 10,000 cities and towns.

In the Central and Southern Illinois region, the Red Cross has installed more than 10,000 free smoke alarms.

The Red Cross is calling on everyone to take two simple steps that can save lives: practice fire drills at home and check existing smoke alarms.

There are several things families and individuals can do to increase their chances of surviving a fire:

  • If someone doesn’t have smoke alarms, install them. At a minimum, put one on every level of the home, inside bedrooms and outside sleeping areas. Local building codes vary and there may be additional requirements where someone lives.
  • If someone does have alarms, test them today. If they don’t work, replace them.
  • Make sure that everyone in the family knows how to get out of every room and how to get out of the home in less than two minutes.
  • Practice the fire escape plan. What’s the household’s escape time?

People can download the all-inclusive Red Cross Emergency app that combines more than 35 emergency alerts to help keep the user safe, and there is a special mobile app -Monster Guard- designed for kids, teaching them to prepare for emergencies at home by playing an engaging game. Users can find the apps in smartphone app stores by searching for the American Red Cross or going to redcross.org/apps.

People can visit redcross.org/homefires to find out more about how to protect themselves and their loved homes from fire. They can become a Red Cross volunteer by contacting Laura.Streid@redcross.org. They can also help by donating to Red Cross Disaster Relief by visiting redcross.org, calling 1-800-RED CROSS or texting the word REDCROSS to 90999 to make a $10 donation. Donations to Disaster Relief will be used to prepare for, respond to and help people recover from disasters big and small. They respond to nearly 64,000 other disasters every year and most of these are home fires.