Recent fatal house fire prompts safety measures in Grove community

JAMES CITY — After a recent fatal house fire, the Grove community is responding with an effort to save lives.

This Friday, Grove Christian Outreach Center is working with Waters Edge Church and the James City County Fire Department to go door-to-door in Grove, installing new smoke and carbon monoxide detectors for residents who need them.

“Lifesaving measures like smoke detectors are vital to the safety of our neighbors and we are eager to respond to the recent loss in a meaningful way,” the outreach center said in a news release.

The door-knocking campaign will start around 9 a.m. and continue throughout the day as volunteers work their way around approximately 1,400 homes in the community. The plan is to install the new detectors “in as many homes as we can reach,” said Katie Patrick, the center’s director.

About 75 volunteers are expected to take part in Friday’s effort, working in shifts throughout the day alongside fire department personnel.

The campaign to help ensure residents have smoke detectors in their homes comes after a house fire in the 100 block of Tarleton Bivouac killed two people last month. In that fire, which resulted in the death of a 50-year-old man and his 83-year-old father, the home did not have a working smoke detector.

The home’s third occupant, an 81-year-old woman, was taken to the hospital and is now “doing well,” Patrick said. She has since moved to an assisted living facility in the area.

After the fire, the outreach center “thought a lot about the grief and trauma experienced by many in the community when something like that happens, and we thought it would be best to do something to take positive action,” Patrick said.

Ahead of Friday’s door-to-door effort, the center has been accepting donations of both funds and smoke detectors.

“We were very fortunate (because) a community individual saw the information … and we’ve already received 100 smoke and carbon monoxide detectors” from West Point-based Pray4me Ministries, Patrick said.

The center is accepting smoke detectors for Friday’s campaign through Wednesday, and anything that comes in after that will be offered to community members.

“If they hear about it after Friday and say, ‘I didn’t get one at my house,’ then we will respond on a case-by-case basis after, which is easy for us to do because we’re right here in Grove,” Patrick said.

In addition to Friday’s campaign, the fire department partners with the American Red Cross to install smoke detectors for county residents in need of basic protection, according to its website.

Those in need of working smoke detectors can call the county fire department at 757-220-0626 to request an in-home visit from a fire crew, which will install up to three smoke detectors and provide one-on-one fire safety education. The service is free.

According to the Red Cross, house fires are the most frequent disaster in the United States, with an average of seven people dying every day from fires in the home. Since the Red Cross launched the Home Fire Campaign in 2014, it has installed more than 2.6 million smoke detectors, saving more than 1,700 lives.

Sian Wilkerson, 757-342-6616, [email protected]