Volunteers needed to install smoke alarms April 30 in Porterville

To help keep families safe, the American Red Cross and community volunteers are coming together to install 200 free smoke alarms for vulnerable households in Porterville, as part of a national Sound the Alarm effort to install 50,000 free smoke alarms in at-risk neighborhoods across the country.

The event will be held from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday, April 30. Volunteers are needed and those interested can register at Soundthealarm.org to volunteer by installing free smoke alarms and sharing fire safety information. Training will be provided at Porterville College before volunteer teams, with members of the Red Cross, visit area homes. No prior experience is needed, and free lunch, snacks and T-shirts will be provided.

Sound the Alarm events are at the heart of the national Home Fire Campaign, which has helped save 1,243 lives across the country. As part of the campaign in the Central Valley, the Red Cross and local partners have installed more than 10,500 free smoke alarms and made more than 4,385 households safer.

Because of generous donations, all services are free for those in need. Donations to the Red Cross are also accepted at Soundthealarm.org to help people prepare for, respond to and recover from home fires.

The nation’s most frequent disaster is one that rarely makes national headlines — home fires. Yet these represent most of the disasters the American Red Cross responds to every eight minutes in the U.S. In Tulare County alone, American Red Cross of the Central Valley volunteers responded to 68 of these fires in the last year.

What’s more, home fires claim seven lives a day in the U.S. — but a working smoke alarm can cut the risk of death by half.