Windsor's new fire chief says smoke alarms are top priority after recent fatal fires
City saw approximately 300 structure fires in 2024, according to Jamie Waffle
Jamie Waffle says it was a "very tragic" end to 2024 in Windsor, Ont., and start to his role as the city's new fire chief.
He officially took over Jan. 1, on the heels of two fatal fires to close out 2024.
Windsor Fire and Rescue Services says crews took on four "major" fires over the course of two days at the end of the year, and that only one of the four residences — including two high-rise apartments and a condominium complex — had a working smoke alarm.
Two people died in those fires, including a 71-year-old woman. Fire officials say there wasn't a working smoke alarm outside where she was sleeping in her Sandwich Street complex.
Waffle says he'll continue to prioritize and emphasize public fire safety — like his predecessor former chief Stephen Laforet — as it relates to smoke alarms.
"This is absolutely imperative," he said.
"We see it time and time again that with the increase of fires, the increase of deaths are happening in homes and in residents where there's no working smoke alarm. Absolutely there's a correlation between the two."
Waffle says there's nothing more critical to fire safety than having a functional alarm and he's unsure why all residents don't seem to be getting the message.
"This is something we are trying to trying to determine why. It's been the law since 2006 … whether you're a landlord or whether you're a resident or a homeowner it's required to have working smoke alarms in your home."
That law states you need to have at least one detector on every level of a residence — and they need to be outside sleeping areas such as a hallway.
According to Waffle, there's been an uptick in the number of high-rise building fires over the last year or so but he's unsure as to why.
"With firefighting, sometimes there seems to be no rhyme or reason as to when and the causes of them."
Windsor saw around 300 structure fires in 2024, according to the new chief — with a handful of those being fatal. And Waffle says that's on par with previous years and across the province.
"Our goal really should be to reduce the number of deaths to zero. Smoke alarms are the number one way to do it. There is no better way than smoke alarms for fire safety."