LAYTON, Utah (The Daily Dish) – The American Red Cross has teamed up with the Layton City Fire Department for a Sound the Alarm event to install free smoke alarms and educate local families about home fire safety.

Home fires are the nation’s most frequent disaster, and most people don’t realize they have just two minutes to escape a home fire. Since launching the Home Fire Campaign in 2014, the American Red Cross has helped save at least 1,583 lives across the country by installing free smoke alarms and helping families create escape plans. This critical work is made possible with the help of partners, who have installed more than 2.5 million free smoke alarms and made more than 1 million households safer nationwide.

The Sound the Alarm event will be held on April 15th at Layton Common’s Park from 9:00 am to 2:00 pm with local volunteers, community partners, and the Layton Fire Department. Together, they will meet with local families to install free smoke alarms, help them create a two-minute fire escape plan, and share safety information on home fires and other local disaster risks.

In 2022 in Utah, 629 smoke alarms were installed, 986 people were served, 365 homes were made safer, and 359 fire escape plans were made through targeted outreach. Red Cross volunteers and community partners are meeting one-on-one with families in at-risk communities to share home fire safety information and install free smoke alarms.

To help protect your household, the American Red Cross recommends testing your smoke alarms each month and practicing your escape plan until everyone can get out in less than two minutes. According to the National Fire Protection Association, the risk of dying in a home fire is cut in half in homes with working smoke alarms. Half of home fire deaths happen between 11 PM and 7 AM, when most people are sleeping. Home fires are so dangerous that they claim more lives in a typical year than all natural disasters combined.

The Layton City Fire Department is excited to partner with the American Red Cross on this event because part of their fire department’s mission is to prevent fire and injury within the city. The Red Cross providing lifesaving smoke alarms to those who need them at no cost is a great tool to help reduce injuries or deaths in a fire.