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  • Rotarians clap as Insurance and Safety Fire Commissioner Ralph Hudgens gives Dalton Fire Chief Bruce Satterfield smoke detectors to give to residents who can't afford their own. (Misty Watson/The Daily Citizen)

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October 31, 2012

Commissioner urges fire safety

Rachel Brown rachelbrown@daltoncitizen.com

Last year, 102 people throughout Georgia died in fires, and nearly all of them didn’t have working smoke alarms in their homes, Insurance and Safety Fire Commissioner Ralph Hudgens said during a visit to Dalton on Tuesday.

So far this year, 45 people have died in fires. Hudgens told Dalton Rotary Club members that he wants to keep that number low — and he plans to do it by educating people about the importance of having working smoke detectors, a fire escape plan and a determination not to go back inside a burning structure to retrieve anything.

“Get out of the house, then stay out of the house,” Hudgens said. “If you try to go back in and get that box of pictures, you may be the next fatality. And let me tell you, it’s not worth a box of pictures or that vase Aunt Bessie gave you when you got married.”

Hudgens provided 24 smoke alarms to Dalton Fire Chief Bruce Satterfield to give to residents who can’t afford their own alarms. Satterfield said the department always keeps some donated alarms on hand to give out with one stipulation — that someone from the fire department install it for the resident and ensure it has fresh batteries and is working.

Satterfield said 80 percent of fire fatalities and 75 percent of burn injuries across the United States occur on residential properties.

“They’re really totally preventable,” he said of fire-related deaths.

Satterfield said the only times he’s seen someone die in a residential fire with working smoke alarms is when drugs or alcohol are involved.

Fire injury prevention has come a long way since Rotary Club member and local physician John Richmond experienced a fire during the 1950s while he was a child. Smoke alarms were still a thing of the future, but Richmond’s parents were able to put out the fire.

“I had a heating blanket start a fire and start my mattress on fire when I was about 7 or 8 years old,” he said.

Richmond said he enjoyed Hudgens’ presentation, including information the commissioner provided about cracking down on individuals and businesses that defraud insurance companies and indirectly drive up rates for consumers.

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