The Clinton Fire Department has been running a free smoke detector program for three years now, installing detectors in homes that have none.
Now they say they're seeing them save lives.
"It actually melted this top in place," Battalion Chief Frederick Roling says of the smoke detector Clinton firefighters credit with saving four lives in a fire last week.
It was installed in 2010, one the many the department has installed free of charge since then.
"Since it started, we've installed probably 1500 homes and we're up to at least 3000-3500 smoke detectors," Roling says.
Clinton's smoke detector program is in its third year, running off donations and grants. It's an effort to get a detector in every home in memory of a deadly fire two years ago that killed four people. That home had no working smoke detectors.
"Check your smoke detectors, make sure they're operating, they should check to make sure they're operating monthly by pressing the test buttons on those detectors," Roling says.
Firefighters say before the program started, about half the homes they responded to didn't have working detectors.
"Years ago it was worse, but now when we go on the calls, we've got quite a few that have working detectors," Roling says.
Though they've installed over three thousand in the last three years, there's still a lot more to go.
"We just want to encourage people that not only when things air on TV to remind people but they can call all year round for these smoke detectors."
All it takes is five minutes and a battery.
"All they need to do is give us a call," Roling says, "Lives are worth a lot more than a nine volt battery."
