Fire alarms save elderly woman, two children

Alvernia Franklin was watching two children on the ground floor of her 2928 Meadowbrook Drive SE home when she smelled smoke and heard smoke detectors sounding from the second floor.

Franklin, 84, promptly got the five-year-old girl and ten-month old girl under her care out of the home, just as fire crews began to arrive.

The fire broke out at around 5:37 p.m. Tuesday, May 11, in a walk in closet in the upstairs of the one-and-a-half floor house.

Fire fighters were able to knock the fire out quickly, limiting fire damage, but were unable to keep smoke from damaging most of the second floor.

Cedar Rapids Fire Department spokesman Greg Buelow said that this is the first fire of the year where working smoke alarms saved lives from a fire.

Buelow said that statistically, children under the age of five, and adults over the age of 65 are twice as likely to die in a fire.

He said that the working smoke alarms reduce people's risk of death in a fire by 50-percent.

Representatives from the Red Cross were on scene to help the home's nine residents with possible accommodations, but Buelow said the family is likely to move in with friends until the smoke damaged rooms on the second floor are fixed.

The cause of the fire is still under investigation.