CLAY — Just after midnight on Jan. 28, Jane Ginsburg awoke to the smell of smoke in her Clay home.
“All of a sudden, I’m noticing there’s a smell of wood smoke in my house, which happens during the summer when people have barbecues,” she said.
There are no barbecues or bonfires in late January, so Ginsburg knew something was wrong as smoke filled her house. Coughing, she opened the windows. When she looked across the street, she saw flames coming from her neighbor’s home.
Ginsburg called 911 and ran across the street, pounding on the door until the sleepy homeowner answered.
“I said, ‘Your house is on fire.’ He said, ‘No, it’s not, it’s an electrical problem,’” Ginsburg recalled. “There was no smoke in his house.”
As the family of five slept, the smoke detectors in their home did not go off. According to Clay Fire Chief Mike Redhead, if it weren’t for Ginsburg, the outcome could have been far worse for the two adults and three children who lived in the home.
“Typically, nighttime fires are what we call a delay in discovery because usually there’s nobody out and about in the nighttime,” Redhead said.
Ginsburg provided the Onondaga County Emergency Communications Center with vital information about her neighbors, their home and vehicles, Redhead said.
“This information provided responding firefighters with credible information to begin a plan of action prior to their arrival. This information was invaluable,” Redhead wrote in a civilian commendation for Ginsburg.
The Clay Fire Department presented Ginsburg with that commendation at the March 15 meeting of the Clay Town Board — but don’t call her a hero, she insisted.
“A hero is somebody that put themselves on the line. I wasn’t in that fire … I didn’t put myself in harm’s way,” she said.
Ginsburg said her son-in-law dubbed her the “human smoke detector.”
In the weeks following her neighbors’ fire, Ginsburg was unsettled.
“The whole night was very surreal,” she said. “It took me forever to not smell a fire burning. I woke up every night for weeks thinking I was still smelling smoke.”
Ginsburg took the opportunity to replace the batteries in her home’s smoke alarms, and she was surprised to learn smoke detectors have expiration dates. (See sidebar for more information.)
Smoke detector tips
The National Fire Protection Association offers the following safety and maintenance tips for smoke detectors.
• Install smoke detectors inside each bedroom and throughout the house on each level. Larger homes require more smoke alarms than smaller houses.
• Make sure your smoke detectors are interconnected so if one goes off, they all go off.
• Test your smoke alarm monthly and change the batteries every year in smoke detectors that have replaceable batteries. Some smoke detectors have non-replaceable batteries that are built to last 10 years. If you hear your smoke alarm chirping, it’s time to change the batteries or replace the alarm.
• Replace your home’s smoke alarms every 10 years. Check for an expiration date on your smoke detectors, especially if your home is older.
• If your smoke alarm goes off, get outside and stay outside until it is safe to reenter your home.
Visit nfpa.org/smokealarms for more information.
“You can’t just throw a battery in them. You have to check the expiration date,” she said.
Ginsburg said her daughter had an outlet that was smoking.
“The next day I called her up and said, ‘Did you ever take care of that?’ ‘Well, we replaced the outlet.’ Not enough,” Ginsburg said.
While she was reluctant to take credit for saving her neighbors’ lives — “Recognition goes to the firemen. I was only able to make their job a little easier,” she said — the Clay Fire Department congratulated her for her actions.
“Your willingness to get involved, properly report the incident, provide vital occupant information, and alert your neighbors to the fire, undoubtedly saved lives. While our agency enjoys an excellent reputation in the emergency services community, we acknowledge citizens like you that enable lives to be saved,” Redhead wrote.
