WTF?

[da]

That's odd.

We just got a visit from a uniformed member of our local Fire Department.

They were asking whether we had a smoke detector. I said "yes," and he said great, that's all he needs to know. He handed me a pamphlet on fire-prevention and walked past the fire truck in front of our house, on to the next house.

I'm sure there was a study somewhere saying this is a good use of their resources. At least, I certainly hope there was.

Unfortunately, it interrupted my lie-down before prepping dinner... Ah well.

Comments

[da-lj.livejournal.com]

That's a good idea. [...It even occurred to me that they might be doing a survey at the same time, but I didn't know what they would survey for, more than rags sitting in cans of gasoline in plain sight...]

[kraig.livejournal.com]

(Found you via a link from slc.com. Now you get to figure out who I am. Shouldn't be difficult.)

My First Real Job Evar was a programming job for a village, supporting the volunteer fire brigade. They'd hired me to write the backend (in dBase IV, as it turned out) and user interface (ditto) and a couple of girls to go around and do interviews. The things they were asking were the smoke detector question, but also things like - and this was of special interest to the firefighters - where the house's electrical panel was, how many occupants, any pets, etc. The followup to a no answer re: smoke detectors was "Would you like one?" The fire brigade would sell the occupant one (at cost, or maybe it had a very reasonable markup, I forget) and if they wanted, set up an appointment to help them install it.

So, that's likely why they were asking - mostly PR, but I would bet they'd encourage you in some way or another if you'd said you didn't have one.