Red Cross works to find ways to distribute smoke detectors during pandemic

Ask any firefighter, and they'll tell you that a smoke detector saves lives. That was the case recently for a Fayetteville family, who had a smoke detector provided to them by the Red Cross.

There's not much left of Fayetteville resident Audra Graham's stove. It caught fire about three weeks ago inside her home on Radial Drive.

"Next thing you know, the fires just became more enraged and it caught to the cabinet," she said. "In my towels and everything around the stove area."

Fortunately in January, the Red Cross 'Sound the Alarm' program added new smoke detectors. They're credited with saving the lives of the four people who were inside the home during the fire.

"[Those were] the first ones that went off [and not] the ones I already had installed before," Graham said. "And having the fire extinguisher helped because it put out most of the fire before the fire trucks got here.

It's a familiar story heard by firefighters and members of the Red Cross. Phil Harris is the Executive Director of the Sandhills Chapter.

He says the 'Sound the Alarm' program started in 2014. Every year the Red Cross gives out about 1,000 smoke detectors in the Sandhills and more than 6,000 in Eastern North Carolina, but the coronavirus pandemic has changed the way the Red Cross passes out the devices.

"We're working on that with social distancing and masks and hand washing," Harris said. "But we want to make sure the process is safe for our clients and our volunteers that go out and install those alarms.

With the importance of functional file alarm clear, the Red Cross continues to work to make sure everyone who needs a detector gets one.