The Brant County Fire Department is stressing the importance of CO alarms after 54 CO related calls in 2016.
BRANT COUNTY - The Brant County Fire Department has teamed up with the Hawkins-Gignac Foundation to highlight the dangers of carbon monoxide in the home.
Carbon monoxide is a colourless, odourless, tasteless gas that can be deadly when found inside the home. It is impossible to detect without a fully functional carbon monoxide alarm.
Fire Prevention Officer Jeff Balkwill says Brant County firefighters were quite busy with carbon monoxide calls last year.
"We had 54 calls and out of those, 14 percent of them carbon monoxide was present in the homes. That does obviously have a concern for us."
All carbon monoxide alarms must be located outside of the sleeping areas in the home, so they wake the residents in the event of a carbon monoxide leak.
If the alarms do go off Balkwill says you should go outside and keep all of the windows and doors shut.
"We want the windows and doors closed that way when we get there we can have a better idea of the readings that are in the home and it helps us determine where the carbon monoxide is coming from."
Carbon monoxide can leak out of any malfunctioning fuel appliance such as furnaces, hot water tanks, gas/wood fireplaces, cars in attached garages, etc.
The Hawkins-Gignac Foundation has teamed up with the Fire Department. During a special presentation the foundation provided carbon monoxide alarms that the fire department can hand out to people in need.

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