Too many homes in Winnipeg don't have smoke alarms, something the Winnipeg Fire Paramedic Service wants to change.

WFPS announced Tuesday it is launching a program to get the alarms installed in homes that don't already have one.

Called the S.A.F.E. Family (Smoke Alarm for Every Family) program, it will be rolled out across the city in homeowner-occupied homes over the next two years.

Firefighters will install up to 20 smoke alarms each Saturday, by appointment.

The S.A.F.E. program will start in the Lord Selkirk and West Kildonan areas of the city, where statistics show WFPS crews attended the most fires in 2018.

Of the 1,834 fires WFPS responded to in 2018, 609, or 44 per cent, occurred in the Lord Selkirk and West Kildonan neighbourhoods, fire Chief John Lane told reporters on Tuesday.

The program will then be offered in the city centre, East Kildonan/Transcona, Riel and Assiniboia areas over the next two years.

The City of Winnipeg created a video explaining the program. Watch it here:

The program won't be offered to rental properties because fire prevention bylaws already require owners of these buildings to install smoke alarms.

Lane says the WFPS is often finding that homes built in the city before 1980 don't have smoke alarms because building codes didn't require a hard-wired smoke alarm then.

"Despite a number of public awareness campaigns urging citizens to have a working smoke alarm, we still see far too many homes without them," he said.

"​Sadly, each year here in Winnipeg, we see tragic results when a home is not equipped with a working smoke alarm."

Interested? You can apply to participate in the program here.