Milwaukee firefighters install smoke alarms after fatal house fire

NOW: Milwaukee firefighters install smoke alarms after fatal house fire
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MILWAUKEE (CBS 58) -- Milwaukee firefighters spent Friday morning going door-to-door installing smoke alarms. The campaign to prevent fires comes after a man and 4-year-old boy were killed in a house fire earlier this week.

Milwaukee firefighters handed out smoke alarms near 39th and Silver Spring by the house where an elderly man and a child were killed in a fire this week.

Firefighters say 2,000 people are killed in house fires every year and those deaths could be prevented if homes have working smoke alarms. Fire officials say they responded to this week's deadly house fire within three minutes and the first and second floors were already engulfed in flames. They say the home did not have working smoke alarms.

Officials say sometimes people get complacent and that's why they always get out into the community after deadly house fires to remind people about the importance of having working smoke alarms, "Unfortunately, when someone breaks into a home in their neighborhood everybody gets scared to death. Oh my goodness, I'm next. Unfortunately, when we have a fire they think ‘Oh what a horrible tragedy’, but there isn't that same sense of what if this would happen to me,” said Chief Mark Rohlfing.

If you are in need of a smoke alarm, you are asked to call the smoke alarm hotline at 414-286-8980. The Milwaukee Fire Department will install the alarm for free.

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