New Canaanites starting now can avail themselves of a free promotion for a safety tool that experts call critical to avoiding home fires.
This is what a proper fireplace ash disposal bucket looks like.
By filling out and submitting this form—also available in person at Weed & Duryea and New Canaan Fire Department headquarters—residents can put in for one of four metal ash disposal buckets.
Designed for safe disposal of hot embers and ashes from a fireplace, the buckets are “very important,” according to New Canaan firefighter Jim Pickering.
“We have had, through the years, numerous fires with the misplacing of the fire ashes, either in the garbage, we have had a maid vacuum up ashes and put the vacuum in closet and the vacuum starts a fire,” Pickering told NewCanaanite.com. “And then we had the Stamford fire where the grandparents and kids passed, they say it was started because of fireplace ashes. It is very important. And along with that is having the smoke detectors.”
Barry Coleman of Weed & Duryea in New Canaan. Credit: Brian Bodick
All items are available at Weed & Duryea on Grove Street, where the Dec. 17 drawing will be held at 10 a.m.
Barry Coleman, retail manager at Weed & Duryea, called the Christmas Day 2011 fire in the Shippan neighborhood of Stamford a “tragedy” and said that the hardware store was eager to do what it could to prevent a similar event here.
“We do fireplaces and screens and all that—we’re the general store for the neighborhood, basically—and so we paired up with the Fire Department when [Fire Marshal] Fred [Baker] came to us to help and get the word out for safety,” Coleman said.
A predawn fire that started in a New Canaan home earlier this month could have been much worse, officials said, if its owners had not been alerted by their dog (as well as a fire alarm system). Inspectors found that access to a fireplace ash dump had been walled over when the basement was finished, and nobody knew, officials said.
Those wishing to enter the drawing may send their name, address and phone number to New Canaan Firefighters at newcanaanfirefighters@hotmail.com — that’s also where people should email the downloadable entry form. Only New Canaan residents may enter.