Syracuse (WSYR-TV) - Firefighters rely on house numbers to find people who need their help. When firefighters struggle to see house numbers, it can mean the difference between life and death.
One local fire department is taking to cut down on those minutes spent searching. The Kirkville Fire Department thinks it has the answer to that and it's deceptively simple. They're proposing every homeowner in the district get themselves a four to five foot sign with reflective numbers that identify precisely where their home is.
Kirkville Captain Dave Bender got the ball rolling by putting one of the signs in front of his home on Route 290. Not just anywhere in front, but right at the end of the driveway.
"As a driver of let's say, an ambulance, you're looking for a house, a house number, but your gaze has to go back and forth across the road, and it just to me makes an awful lot of sense to have it where it's needed, at the entrance to the property," Bender said.
Just like the big reflective labels on turnout gear that makes them visible, fire and ambulance crews need your house number to be big and reflective and hard to miss. "When I drove for EAVES Ambulance, I know they would call us and say, 'You just went by the house.' The caller had returned the call to the 911 center and said, "They just went by'," Bender said.
Bender has already gotten his neighbors to put up the new signs. For $20, to cover the cost of materials, the Fire Department will put one up for other residents as well. They've even got their own in-house sign-maker to do the numbers.
The Kirkville Fire Department is now making the large, reflective house number signs available
with an on-line push. Kirkville is also hoping the idea catches on in other rural fire districts.
