JANESVILLE — The Janesville Fire Department will mark Fire Prevention Week this week, in an annual effort to educate the community on how to keep fires at bay.
This year’s theme is “Smoke alarms: Make them work for you!”
Janesville Fire Marshall Nate Simmons said that in the recent months the city has seen two fatal fires in which no working smoke detectors were present.
“It’s not just about making sure you have them,” he said, of smoke detectors. “It’s making sure that they’re in the right place, making sure that they function, making sure that you’re changing batteries, making sure that you’re testing them.”
In addition to the fatal fires, several other fires have recently broken out in Janesville “where the smoke alarms are in the house just not mounted in the right location, or someone takes them down, or they don’t change the battery,” Simmons continued. “We really want to educate the community on the importance of a working smoke alarm.”
Ensuring that your smoke detector is working sounds simple but is something easy to forget to check, he said.