On a cool Saturday morning in Richmond, Calif., a group of colleagues from construction management company Vanir traded hard hats and project schedules for clipboards and smoke alarms. They were part of the American Red Cross Sound the Alarm campaign, installing free smoke alarms and sharing fire safety information in at-risk communities.
But for this team, the day was about more than just service. It was also about connection.
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“You’re on the water. You’ve got wildlife out your window. You’ve got the sun playing off the water.”
That’s how Flo Hoylman describes living aboard a houseboat in Sausalito, Calif., just north of the San Francisco Golden Gate Bridge. But Flo, who serves on the board of the Sausalito Floating Homes Association, knows she and her neighbors on the water are just as susceptible to fires as any other Californians.
“We still burn. And if there was a fire, like there was in Santa Rosa, the embers would come down on us, too.”
Read moreCo-authored by Channa Sweet and Jill Feldon LaNouette
Carol awoke at 2 a.m. to an unimaginable scene unfolding in front of her. She was trapped in a room with smoke burning her nose and flames licking at the door. Unable to leave through her bedroom door, she climbed out her window and escaped from the third floor down an already burning fire escape. With singed hair and bare feet firmly planted on the cold ground, she stood across the street feeling like she was “watching her whole life burn away.”
Read more1,357 smoke alarms installed throughout the Northern California Coastal Region in this spring
The American Red Cross responds to home fires more than any other disaster nationwide, so home fire prevention is something we take seriously. For that reason, Red Cross members, along with local fire departments and community partners, to install 1,357 free smoke alarms in 502 homes, making 1,472 residents safer from homes fires during our 2025 Sound the Alarm campaign. From April 26 – May 23, communities in Alameda, Contra Costa, Solano, Merced, San Benito, San Francisco, San Joaquin, San Mateo and Santa Clara counties were made safer thanks to free smoke alarms and home fire prevention education.
Sound the Alarm events are a critical part of the national Red Cross Home Fire Campaign which aims to reduce the number of deaths from home fires. The Home Fire Campaign has helped save 2,320 lives since its launch in October 2014 due to working smoke alarms in homes. Nationwide, volunteers and local fire departments visit neighborhoods to install free smoke alarms and share home fire prevention information with residents, including home fire escape plans. Here in the Northern California Coastal Region, volunteers and partners have installed more than 55,300 free smoke alarms and made more than 20,000 households safer since 2014, saving 32 lives reported in the Greater Bay Area.
On a recent chilly Saturday morning, high school senior Brayden Rapa joined dozens of other volunteers at the Vallejo Mobile Estates. Their goal was to make this community safer by installing free smoke alarms, made possible courtesy of the American Red Cross.
Brayden, a student at Northgate High School in Walnut Creek, volunteered for the event as part of his senior class project. He says most seniors choose a project based on a career path they are passionate about. He chose fire prevention because he plans to become a firefighter.
Read more“I said, ‘A fire! A fire! Let’s get out. Everybody get out!’”
Marie Monthier will never forget what happened in the early morning hours of September 3, 2023. She and her extended family of two older adults, two adult children and two small grandchildren were asleep in their mobile home in Marin County, California. Marie got up to use the restroom and heard smoke alarms blaring. That’s when she saw a fire behind the kitchen stove and alerted her family to evacuate.
Marie’s son, David Mardy, had just moved into his own apartment in Marin County. When his mother called him after everyone got out of the house safely, David rushed over and found the home in ruins and his family in shock.
“The whole family was on the street, standing, looking at the house burning down. My mom said, ‘Look at my house!’ Tears started coming out of my eyes,” David said.
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