Don't Be Alarmed if Brighton Fire Trucks Accompany Pizza Delivery

If you order delivery from between 4 p.m. and 8 p.m. Friday or Oct. 21, it could be escorted to your house by a engine.

The firefighters will ask to inspect home smoke detectors, and if they are working properly, the pizza is free. If they don’t work, either because the batteries are dead or the alarms are faulty or you simply don't have smoke alarms, firefighters will rectify the problem by either replacing the batteries or replacing the smoke alarms altogether at no cost to the homeowner.

This is the fourth year that the Brighton Area Fire Authority will team up with Marco's to promote smoke detectors and home safety. This year, Lowe's is also partnering with the duo. The event coincides with National Fire Prevention Week, which is this week.

The idea came from the positive results that the National Fire Service had working with Domino's Pizza many years ago, according to Brighton Area Fire Marshal Michael O'Brian.

"Most of our devastating fires happen in homes. Most of our firefighter deaths and injuries and most of our civilian deaths and injuries happen in residential fires," O'Brian said. "So it's important for us to try and get into where those fires are happening and see realistic conditions and try to give some recommendations."

O'Brian said about 90 percent of the time, homeowners don't have a problem letting the fire department inside to inspect smoke alarms.

"We're not there to judge cleanliness," he said. "It's the furthest thing on our minds."

The fire department will make it to about 15 to 20 homes each night, depending on how long the interactions are at each house. The department will not take every pizza run, so it will be a roll of the dice to which homes the fire engine pulls up to.

O'Brian said the department installed about 60 alarms during the event last year.

"We followed a lot of the national trends," he said. "We were right around 30 percent that were not working. Something was wrong—the batteries were missing, the detectors were absent or not charged or they were greater than 10 years old."

The fire department is pushing to get into 1,000 homes and make sure they have working fire alarms in 2012, O'Brian said.