Installing Smoke Alarms and overall Community Risk Reduction are ongoing missions for MySafe:LA. With that in mind, MySafe:LA and the Los Angeles Fire Department spent the day in San Pedro last weekend (6/4/16). Working with the the LAFD’s Operations South Bureau, three city blocks of homes were visited. The neighborhood was chosen for the canvassing based on the number of LAFD responses in the area, and other data that show it to be an at-risk area.
Teaming-up with the crews of LAFD stations 112 and 48, and accompanied by Los Angeles Fire Chief Ralph Terrazas and South Bureau Commander Daren Palacios, MySafe:LA installation teams visited homes on 15th, 16th, and 17th Streets between South Mesa and South Centre Streets, just East of 15th Street Elementary School.
The participation of Fire Chief Terrazas and Bureau Commander Palacios was a tremendous boon to the operation, giving San Pedro residents the opportunity to see how the very top officers in the LAFD care about Community Risk Reduction and their safety. MySafe:LA and LAFD personnel, including the Chief himself, walked the neighborhoods, knocking on doors, and if invited in, inspected the home for fire hazards and working smoke alarms. If alarms were needed, up to five free alarms were provided and installed.
The cooperation between the LAFD and MySafe:LA in San Pedro helped to ensure the community is equipped with functioning smoke alarms and demonstrated the strong partnership between our organizations — LAFD Chief Ralph Terrazas.
With the help of the LAFD, we were able to contact 70 homes during the canvassing operation, and gained access to more than 30 of those homes. MySafe:LA’s expert installers installed 85 smoke alarms and CO detectors, while MySafe:LA Fire Safety Educators talked to the residents about how to make a family fire escape plan, and reduce potential fire hazards in their home. Several appointments were made to come back and do a free installation at a later date.
MySafe:LA collaborates with the LAFD to conduct these type of Community Risk Reduction Operations in all four of the Department’s geographic bureaus, and will continue to do so with the goal of making sure there is no barrier to an LA resident having the full protection of life-saving smoke alarms and CO detectors. Smoke alarms save lives … but only if you have them.
(photos by Leah Palacios)
