Fire departments going door to door and supplying free smoke detectors to citizens

I am not a fan of the current status of fire protection in America. I have argued for over a decade on the PNJ and here that fire departments across America are rendundant and costly. After 911 a blank check was given to first responders as a retired chief I share office laughed that they were getting tax referendums passed and nobody ever says no to their wish list. Part of the economic stimulus was pouring even more money into fire protection hiring more firefighters.

Yet, the single best protection for a citizen is working smoke detectors. Some fire Departments finally have their priorities right. Instead of pouring millions into equipment to keep up with the community next to them, they are going door to door each year and replacing smoke detectors for free and installing them where needed. This service is free. I mean it cost four million for the new fire station on Pensacola Beach, yet if departments would consolidate departments, share equipment, and make sure every citizen can get out of their home before being at risk, the current inefficient model of fire protection which looks more like 1890 than 2017 could put resources in smoke detector maintenance. Sure somebody can say no to the fire department at your door, but if what was reported on today this morning is correct, some departments have their priorities right. Smoke detectors save lives. Having a piece of equipment in the expanded fire station which is used once a year because mutual aid agreements cannot agree on shared capital expenditures, while thousands of citizens have no smoke detectors.....stupid on steroids.

There's also a great deal of money poured into fire prevention starting in the great plains all the way across to California. These "wild" fires are natural and needed. What we've done is to allow growth that's unsustainable which simply fuels much larger and more dangerous fires than what the grasses and brush would've ever produced. It's changed the topography and created false habitats for animals and humans. We would do well to stop artificially influencing what should be and would be again natural processes.