Officials Hand Out Free Smoke Detectors In Brooklyn
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- The FDNY and Red Cross handed out free smoke detectors as part of National Fire Prevention Week.
Dozens lined up outside Brooklyn Borough Hall in Downtown Brooklyn at the event on Friday.
Many are still haunted by a fire last March that claimed the lives of seven children from one family. The Midwood home had no working smoke detectors on the first and second floors.
"Kids being the victim, die in the fire, you have to be more careful," Bridget Johnson from Canarsie said as she picked up her detector.
"It's scary, especially when you go to bed," a Flatbush resident said. "It can happen anytime, but when you're asleep you're more vulnerable, so having a detector is really important."
Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams said he wasn't surprised to see the long line.
"When you start to think about if you're going to put bread on the table or a smoke alarm, people tend to go more toward the bread on the table so we want to make that option an easier one by providing the alarms here," Adams said.
Meanwhile, fire marshals are still trying to determine the cause of last weekend's explosion in Borough Park that killed two women.
"We have lab tests going on with some samples that the marshals took from the site, hopefully, they'll definitively give us information," said Fire Commissioner Daniel Nigro.
Officials have eliminated natural gas as the cause of the blast.