PRESS RELEASE – History: On Jan. 25, 2019, the Edgerton Fire Department was called to THE fire we never wanted to have but knew it was always possible.
On that cold winter night a young mother lost her life in a tragic house fire. From this incident we learned that older smoke alarms while still testing ok lose their ability to quickly sound the alarm. Any smoke alarms need to be replaced after 10 years.
During the investigation of this fire we were contacted by representatives of the State Fire Marshal’s office and The Red Cross about starting a FREE smoke alarm program in our fire district.
We started the program with a one day blitz of Edgerton then the program was turned over to the department to continue. To date we have installed 1261 alarms in 426 homes.
Recently, we responded to one of those 426 homes for a working fire. While responding we were advised by dispatch that everyone was out of the house.
After extinguishment, as we interviewed the occupants, we were advised the mother and child had escaped this fire because of being awakened by a smoke alarm.
Checking our records showed we had installed 4 alarms in this house in 2020. During this investigation the alarm that awakened the occupants kept sounding so it was removed and is still giving us a low battery alarm here in the station.
This incident just made the time and effort to install these alarms worth it all. And the good news is the program is still going strong.
Contact us by going to the Edgerton Fire Department facebook page, email Chief Blue at sblue@edgerton-ohio.com, email Asst Chief Adkins at radkins@edgerton-ohio.com or call
the Village offices at 419-298-2912 and they will get us the message.