It has been three years since an underground gasoline leak at a convenience store on Ninth Street led to a major apartment house fire in Old West Lawrence.

But for leaders of Lawrence-Douglas County Fire Medical, there’s still a fact from the incident that nags at them.

When Fire Medical crews were inspecting homes in the neighborhood to ensure dangerous gas fumes had not seeped into the houses, they also checked for something else: working smoke detectors.

What they found was that 30 percent of the houses didn’t have a single working detector.

“It was an eye-opener,” said Rich Barr, the city’s fire marshal.

Now, Fire Medical leaders think they may have found their opening to correct the problem. The department has applied for $168,000 in federal funding to create a new program that would send firefighters into neighborhoods to check for compliance with the city’s fire code, which requires a smoke detector in all residential units.

The grant money would be used to purchase special long-lasting, battery-operated smoke detectors for those households that can’t afford to do so.

“It could be a significant program for the community,” Fire Chief Mark Bradford said. “Everybody already is supposed to have one by code, but it is just too easy for some people to take the battery out of it when it starts chirping, and then it never gets replaced.”

Newly constructed homes in Lawrence are required to have smoke detectors that are hardwired into the home’s electrical system. But many older homes rely on only a battery-operated unit, if any at all.

Bradford said the department has found a battery-operated smoke detector that operates using a lithium battery that will last for 10 years without replacement.

The city currently purchases a few of those units each year to give to residents when it find a home without a smoke detector. But Bradford estimates that to attack the problem, the city would need to purchase more than 10,000 of the units for about $16 each.

Bradford said the new program likely would target older areas of town, manufactured homes, and certain areas where socio-economic factors may make it difficult for families to follow the code.

The department is applying for the funds through a Federal Emergency Management Agency grant that has more money to distribute because of the federal stimulus package.

If the fire department wins the grant, the city would have to provide about a $33,000 match for the program. City commissioners already have given the department permission to apply for the grant, but they would have the ability not to move forward on the project if local funding becomes problematic.

The department also is seeking federal grant money for several larger-ticket items. Those include:

• $350,000 for a new ladder truck. The federal grant would pay for only a portion of the $1.2 million truck. The city would need to fund the remaining $925,000. With the infrastructure sales tax that voters approved in November, the city is now setting aside $500,000 per year for fire equipment purchases. Bradford said the city also may explore a cost-sharing program with Kansas University because a large number of the buildings that would require a 100-foot ladder truck are located on the KU campus.

• $175,000 to buy video-conferencing equipment for all the city’s fire stations. The equipment would allow firefighters to receive more training at their individual stations rather than traveling to a central location. Bradford said that is important because response times increase when crews are not at their stations.

• $1.2 million to remodel Fire Station No. 1, which is located at 746 Ky.

The department is in the process of applying for all the FEMA grants. The city likely will be notified in the next 12 months about whether it has been awarded any grant money.