Firefighters installed a smoke alarm in the Burke Street home of an 81-year-old woman in April last year, and returned to replace the batteries earlier this year.

The alarm saved her when she was woken and managed to escape before flames engulfed the property on September 1.

Wangaratta leading firefighter Robert Skase said the council had previously provided money for alarms and batteries, and referred vulnerable people in the community to the CFA for installation.

“It’s only $2000, it’s one ratepayer, so that’s very frustrating,” Mr Skase said.

“We’ve known anecdotally that working smoke alarms save lives and now we have the hard fact … it’s a pity the council don’t seem to want to continue the funding and support of it.”

Many Wangaratta residents helped by the program were elderly and non-English speaking.

“They’re the vulnerable ones that don’t have the support network,” Mr Skase said.

“We’re here to monitor the safety of the citizens to make sure everyone has a working smoke alarm.”

Community wellbeing director Jaime Carroll said the council did not have the capacity to fund the many applications it received from across the community.

“It was never meant to be ongoing funding, it was more around some funding had become available,” she said.

“”This council needs to be responsible with how we allocate our funds … In an ideal word we would fund these sorts of programs, but we have a finite amount of funds.”

Ms Carroll advised the brigade to apply for the next round of community grants in early 2018.

The program started in Wangaratta 15 years ago through community donations, so the fire brigade will again look to others to make up for the shortfall from the council.

Meanwhile, an email from CFA acting operating officer Dom Tomkins has told members to immediately cease installing smoke alarms until regulations are put in place.

CFA acting chief officer Gary Cook, who formerly headed up the North East region, told 3AW he was confident that could happen within six weeks.

He backed the program as “an important safety device for the community”.

“We’ve identified this as a bit of an issue we need to tidy up so we’ve got to act and we’re acting as fast as we can,” Mr Cook said.

“We would like to expand this program now, it’s not something we’re looking to wind back, we see the benefits in it.”

Wangaratta CFA volunteer community safety officer Lauren McCully said the council advised the brigade it did not need to apply for community grants to reclaim the funding, before backflipping on the decision just before applications closed.

“This program that we’ve been running is at risk of closing, putting people at risk,” she said.

“It’s one that only runs out of Wangaratta and it saves lives.”