By Stephanie Babyak, Red Cross volunteer

The morning of Feb. 18 should have started out like any other morning for a Silver Spring, Maryland mother and her young family – breakfast, taking the children to school, heading to work. Except it didn’t. In the early morning hours, a multi-family fire broke out at their Arrive Silver Spring apartment building, filling the hallways and stairwells with black, dense smoke.

Montgomery County, Maryland Fire and Rescue and other emergency workers evacuated residents through the choking smoke, a terrifying experience that impacted residents wouldn’t soon forget. 

Roughly 100 firefighters answered the call to fight the three-alarm fire which displaced more than 400 residents and made some 208 units uninhabitable.  A temporary shelter was set up for those affected and despite the early hour, Red Cross Disaster Action Team responders were on the scene to offer help.  After being checked by emergency medical workers, our young Silver Spring family was met by Red Cross volunteers who offered emotional support and helped get them settled.

“The Red Cross never left us, and they were very, very helpful,” the mother said.

Home fires account for most of the more than 60,000 disasters that the Red Cross responds to annually across the country. So far in 2023, Red Cross volunteers have helped more than 33,000 people affected by more than 8,600 home fires in the U.S.

After a home fire, the Red Cross is there to offer financial assistance for urgent needs like emergency lodging, food and clothing, replacing medications, and one-on-one recovery support for navigating next steps and connecting with community resources.

That February day, many Arrive Silver Spring building families lost nearly everything they owned in the fire, and their lives were upended unexpectedly. In an emergency, the Red Cross is there to offer aid and emotional support.  But help doesn’t end there.  In the days and weeks afterwards, volunteer team members continue to work with survivors to get families back on the road to recovery.

As this young Silver Spring mom explained, “The Red Cross took care of everything, and stays in touch regularly to follow up to be sure we are being taken care of.”

Sadly, home fires claim seven lives every day.  Often, these tragedies occur in homes without working smoke alarms.  To address this problem, the American Red Cross launched the Home Fire Campaign, which has saved almost 1,700 lives from the threat of home fires since the program launched in 2014.  Since then, with the support of community partners and volunteers, the American Red Cross has achieved its goal of installing 2.5 million free smoke alarms and making 1 million households safer across the country.

The campaign includes Sound the Alarm events to install free smoke alarms and share home fire safety information with residents, including creating escape plans. The campaign has also been expanded to include installing accessible fire safety equipment like bed-shaker alarms and strobe light smoke alarms for residents who are deaf or hard of hearing, along with providing home fire safety resources in American Sign Language.

Test smoke alarms monthly and practice your two-minute home fire escape plan. If you want to help save lives, join the Red Cross Home Fire Campaign. Become a volunteer or make a financial donation to prepare, respond and help those impacted by disasters – like our young Silver Spring family – recover from home fires.

Additional safety tips and information about the Home Fire Campaign is available at redcross.org/HomeFires and on the free Red Cross Emergency app.