Greene Twp., Kuhl Hose offering property owners free smoke detectors

Don Erbin has an unattractive, battery-powered device he likes to show people when he talks about fire safety.

It's the remnants of a smoke detector, its plastic shell melted away by the intense heat of a fire.

"You can put a battery in it and it will still go off," said Erbin, chief of the Kuhl Hose Co. in Greene Township.

Kuhl Hose has stacks of smoke detectors in much better shape than the one Erbin likes to show off inside the volunteer fire and rescue department's fire station on Rescue Lane off Route 8.

Erbin uses the fire-damaged detector to remind people of how such alarms can help save lives and property when a fire breaks out. Kuhl Hose and township officials are using the other detectors, brand-new and still in their packages, to ensure that everyone who lives or works in Greene Township has one in their homes or buildings.

Greene Township Supervisors in April approved allocating Kuhl Hose Co. $65,000 from a portion of the township's American Rescue Plan funding to purchase smoke detectors to give away free to every residential and business building in the township, which has a population of about 4,500 residents. Supervisor Joy Biebel, the board's liaison to the fire department, said Erbin approached supervisors about the idea as he noted a few instances where there were no smoke detectors at fire scenes.

"We decided to make sure this round of ARP money went toward each resident of the township," said Biebel, who took office in 2022.

Greene Township's supervisors came under fire in 2021 when they, along with some other township employees, received $10,000 premium pay bonuses through a portion of the township's ARP funding. Supervisors approved the bonuses along with other ARP allocations. However, the township's auditors, who are required set pay for supervisors if they also serve as a township employee, did not approve the premium pay until nearly three months after supervisors delivered the bonuses, according to Erie Times-News reports in January and February 2022.

More:Greene Township officials dodge legal, ethical questions over $10,000 bonuses

The funds Kuhl Hose received for the smoke detectors were awarded at April's meeting under a resolution that also allocated portions of the township's ARP funding to other projects and agencies, including $32,000 for exterior and interior door keyless entry, nearly $60,000 for water engineering, and $20,000 for digitizing files, according to the minutes of the supervisors' April 10 work session.

One person in attendance at the supervisors' April 11 regular meeting, when supervisors approved the ARP allocations, asked if there were any plans on using ARP money for bonuses during this round of funding allocations. It was stated no, there are no bonuses, according to the minutes of that meeting, which are posted on Greene Township's website.

A driving force behind the smoke detector plan, according to Erbin, was a fire on New Year's Day. A fire that started in the chimney of a home on Clemens Road extended to the walls, and the residents of the house were awakened by their smoke alarm and made it out of the house safely, he said.

"If not for the smoke alarm, they wouldn't have known about the fire until it was too late," Erbin said, noting that the fire caused minimal damage to the residence.

The department used the ARP allocation to purchase about 1,800 detectors, enough for every business and residence in Greene Township, Erbin said. It has given away less than 100 so far, with many of those distributed during a National Night Out event in the township on Aug. 1. Additional distribution events will be scheduled in the near future, Erbin said.

Township officials will spread the word about the availability of the detectors in the township's next newsletter, Biebel said. Township and fire officials said the word is also being spread on social media, including on Kuhl Hose's Facebook page.

If a resident or a business does not want a free detector, they will be checked off of the list of those eligible for a detector. Another list will be made of those residents or businesses who state they would like a second detector, and those detectors not initially taken will be made available to them, according to Erbin.

Although smoke detectors are a common safety device in many homes, Erbin said it's not unusual for his department to respond to a home or building fire and find no working detectors in place.

"I'd probably say 30% of the time they don't have them or they don't have a battery in them or the battery's dead," said Erbin, a Kuhl Hose member for 34 years and its chief for the past 21 years.

Kuhl Hose is not alone locally in trying to get smoke detectors in as many properties as possible. The Erie Bureau of Fire has for years given away detectors to eligible homeowners in the city that the bureau obtained through grant funding or donations.

More:Erie fire officials open free detector giveaway to homeowners throughout Erie County

The city fire bureau most recently secured 3,400 combination smoke and carbon monoxide detectors through a federal grant and a local match and began distributing them in late 2021. All of the detectors have since been given away, Erie Chief Fire Inspector Don Sauer said.

Contact Tim Hahn at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @ETNhahn.