Project aims for zero deaths from fire or carbon monixide

By Joel Wittnebel/The Oshawa Express

It is a statistic that Oshawa Fire Services is rather proud of – zero deaths from fire in the last four years, and a new project is looking to keep it that way.

Project Zero looks to spread the word about the importance of smoke and carbon monoxide detectors in an effort to reduce the deaths from these types of disasters to zero, for good.

Launched on July 26, Oshawa fire fighters will be distributing approximately 275 combination smoke and carbon monoxide alarms to Oshawa homes in need.

Public education campaigns regarding the importance of these devices have been ongoing for years, Fire Chief Steve Meringer says, but there are still many homes out there without this vital technology. Of Oshawa’s 40-plus fires this year, several were at homes found to not have working smoke alarms, or no smoke alarms at all. This is also true when it comes to the carbon monoxide alarms.

“Carbon monoxide is as important, because if you’re awake and see smoke, obviously you’re going to get out. You don’t see carbon monoxide…you don’t feel it, you don’t taste it, you don’t smell it, so it’s the silent killer,” Meringer says.

“Although there’s been a lot of public information about it, people don’t have the same comfort level or knowledge level as they do with smoke alarms.”

Many times, it can come down to the cost of these devices. While smoke alarms have been available on store shelves for years and have dropped in price, the relatively new technology of the carbon monoxide detector, only made mandatory in Ontario homes in 2014, can still be a hit to the pocket book for families struggling financially.

And the numbers show that many homes are still without these devices. According to numbers from the province, approximately 50 people die each year in Canada from carbon monoxide, including 11 in Ontario.

Meringer says it is those most in need in Oshawa that the project hopes to help.

“There’s residents within the city who are struggling to put food on the table. If they need help we want to be able to help them,” he says.

“We don’t ever want anybody to die, whether it’s in a fire or a carbon monoxide incident because they couldn’t afford a detector.”

Project Zero is done in partnership with Enbridge Gas Distribution, which donated the alarms being distributed, and other Ontario municipal fire departments. The project is also made possible by the Fire Marshal’s Public Fire Safety Council.

The detectors will be handed out during the fire service’s annual door-to-door visits as part of the Alarmed for Life campaign.

Looking ahead, Meringer says Oshawa Fire Services is already looking to take the next step and hopefully expand the program to include alarms for the deaf which, with considerably more technology involved, can be significantly more expensive than normal detectors.