Insurance and smoke detectors can save your house
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House fires kill about three thousand people every year, and injure another 20 thousand. The majority of deaths are in homes without a working smoke detector.
It’s been almost a week since one Texas Avenue house caught fire leaving a family homeless.
“I immediately ran into my sons room, grabbed him, grabbed the house phone and dialed 911 and ran outside,” says Justin Lamonica, who lived in the Texas Avenue house.
Fire officials say the fire started outside in a garbage can, and in just minutes the side of the house was fully engulfed in flames, leaving the master bedroom with significant damage.
The Lamonica’s home not only sustained significant damage to the back of the house the rest of the home experienced heavy smoke damage as well.
Justin and his wife were renting the home from her grandmother, but didn’t know until after the damage was done that they didn’t have renters insurance.
“it’s was just one of those things, where we were going to take care of it next month, and now it’s to late,” says Lamonica.
“It was an outside fire, that came inside. would a smoke detector activated before he recognized that while he was up? we don’t know.” says Mike Page with the Grand Junction Fire Department.
Lamonica says he heard a loud bang in the bedroom that notified him of the fire, his smoke alarm that was just outside his bedroom didn’t go off until it was too late.
“Smoke detectors are really designed to protect us when were most vulnerable, and when were most vulnerable is when were sleeping,” says Page.
Having smoke alarms isn’t the only thing that can save you, making sure you have insurance is the key to getting back on your feet.
“I just thought. ‘were homeless’ because most contractors don’t wont to work with someone who doesn’t have insurance,” says Lamonica.
But if anything, the Lamonica’s learned a lesson the hard way..
“If we rent somewhere we’ll at least get renters insurance, I’m a firm believer in smoke alarms now, one in every room in every hall way,” saya Lamonica.
The Red Cross has put the Lamonica’s up in a hotel for the time being, and they have set up a bank account at American National Bank under Sarah Monano.
