Erie fire officials open free detector giveaway to homeowners throughout Erie County
A stockpile of smoke and carbon monoxide detectors funded through a federal grant and available to Erie homeowners at no cost attracted a swarm of city property owners to the Erie Bureau of Fire's Fire Prevention office in 2021.
With a number of those detectors still available, the fire bureau is now offering the free safety devices to homeowners throughout Erie County, for a limited time.
The roughly 1,000 combination smoke, fire and carbon monoxide detectors that remain from a purchase of 3,400 devices will be given away at the Fire Prevention office at 311 Marsh St. on Thursday, Friday and Saturday from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Officials will give away 330 detectors each day, two per homeowner. Recipients must own and live in their homes.
The detectors are expected to fly out of the office fast, Erie Fire Inspector Don Sauer said Wednesday.
Each day's allotment will be available until the supply runs out. Officials are asking those interested in obtaining detectors to go to the office to get them, and to not call the Fire Prevention office or the office of Fire Chief Joe Walko. Officials said they will update the availability of detectors each day on the Erie firefighters Facebook page.
Those who visit the Marsh Street office must wear a mask, as masking is once again required in Erie city buildings, officials said.
Sauer said the bureau is opening the giveaway to homeowners outside of the city because the grant that paid for the detectors wasn't just a city grant, but a federal grant to provide safety everywhere.
"We want county residents to be just as safe as city residents," he said.
The giveaway is the latest in a series of programs the Erie Bureau of Fire has conducted over the years to provide property owners with smoke and carbon monoxide detectors at no cost. The bureau has given away thousands of detectors in the city that it obtained through grants and donations, including a federal grant secured in 2018 that helped supply the bureau with 4,000 detectors.
Erie fire bureau restocks detectorsAn ongoing push to get smoke detectors into homes and facilities in Erie has wiped out the Erie Bureau of Fire's supply.
The bureau's most recent detector supply was secured in late 2020, when a federal grant and local match enabled the city to purchase 3,400 detectors.
The bureau received half of that allotment in April 2021. Within days, they were gone.
"We started at noon on a Wednesday. By noon on Friday, we were done. There was a line out the door for them," Sauer said.
Erie homeowners flood detector giveawayAn offer of free smoke and carbon monoxide detectors to homeowners in Erie has wiped out the Erie Bureau of Fire's stock
The second batch arrived later in the year. Erie residents continued to come to the Marsh Street office to obtain them, and some of the detectives were given to local elected officials to distribute from their offices, Sauer said.
The grant program that paid for the detectors has to be closed out by the end of June, so officials need to wrap up the distribution and gather information on where all of the detectors went, Sauer said. He said city officials are planning to apply for a new grant to obtain additional detectors to give away in the future.
Contact Tim Hahn at thahn@timesnews.com. Follow him on Twitter @ETNhahn.
This article originally appeared on Erie Times-News: Erie fire safety: City offering free detectors to county homeowners
