Tag Archives: STA

Sound The Alarm:  502 Homes Made Safer Thanks to Red Cross Volunteers, Local Fire Departments and Community Partners

Posted on by

1,357 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.

Read more

“I feel like they’re the heroes in this world.” Future Firefighter Inspired to Help Red Cross Make Homes Safer

Posted on by

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

Sound the Alarm: A lifesaving service helps keep one Marin mobile home park safer 

Posted on by

“What you guys are doing, you reassure us that people are out there and care.” 

Lucie Tison and her husband Tom at his house in San Rafael.
Photo by Marcia Antipa / American Red Cross

Lucie Tison and her husband Tom have lived in the Contempo Marin Mobile Home Park in San Rafael for 17 years. On a recent Saturday morning, teams of volunteers from the Red Cross fanned out across this community of 400 homes to install free smoke alarms for residents. This Sound the Alarm event is part of the Red Cross Home Fire Campaign, a national program designed to save lives from home fires through installation of free smoke alarms and fire safety education. 

As of August 23rd, the Red Cross announced that since the start of the Home Fire Campaign in October of 2014, volunteers have installed more than 2.5 million free smoke alarms with almost 2,000 documented lives saved thanks to those smoke alarms and fire safety education. 

Read more