Gwinnett County Commissioners accepted a $62,520 grant Tuesday that will buy some 4,000 smoke detectors for elderly and needy residents.
The money comes from the Federal Emergency Management Agency through the Georgia Department of Homeland Security. The grant requires a $15,630 matching grant from county funds.
The smoke detectors will be distributed to residents in 10 communities in high call-volume areas, based on incident reports and a needs assessment.Gwinnett firefighters respond to an average of 640 residential fires annually and had 12 related deaths in the last two years.
There have been eight fires recently in two manufactured home communities where 40 percent of the residents are fixed-income seniors and 98 percent of the homes have no working smoke detectors.
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