Baltimore officials push for fire safety amid record number of fire deaths
BALTIMORE -- Baltimore officials and members of the city's fire department canvassed communities throughout the city to stress the importance of fire safety on Saturday.
This comes after a recent fire that killed three children in Southwest Baltimore last month.
Mayor Brandon Scott, along with firefighters, installed smoke alarms with 10-year lithium tamper-resistant batteries in homes where they were needed.
City Council President Nick Mosby and Councilman Robert Stokes, Sr., and acting fire chief Dante Stewart took part in the smoke alarm sweep, too.
During a press conference on Saturday afternoon, Scott emphasized that people needed to have smoke detectors in their homes.
"What we want folks to do is to also have a plan for how you are going to get out of your home, but you have to have working smoke detectors in your house," Scott said.
Anyone can get a free smoke detector by calling 311, he said.
The number of fatal fires in Maryland is more than double in 2023 than what Maryland State Fire Marshal Brian Geraci says he typically sees in the first three months of an average year.
Geraci said there have been almost 40 fire-related fatalities in the first three months of 2023.
Normally, fewer than 20 fire-related fatalities are reported during that time period, he said.
"We've never seen the fire death rate this high in the first three months of the year for decades. You'd have to go back to a time when people didn't have smoke alarms," Geraci told WJZ Investigator Mike Hellgren last month. "This year, it has just gone crazy. It's out of control."
