October is Fire Prevention Month, the theme for which in 2024 is “Smoke Alarms: make them work for you!”
“Roughly three out of five fire deaths that we’ve had in the past few years, they happen in the homes where there’s no smoke alarms or ones that are not working, so we’ve gone into fires where there’s a smoke alarm but the crew that goes in said ‘I didn’t hear any smoke alarms going off,’” said Radcliff Deputy Fire Marshal Tommy Crane.
Crane says people often take a dying battery out and fail to replace it, but when a smoke alarm sounds you typically only have two minutes to get to safety, so take the time to make sure the smoke detector is in working order. In addition to checking the batteries, check on the smoke alarm itself.
“Change them out every 10 years, so every 10 years change those smoke alarms out,” Crane said. “The effectiveness goes down through the years. The other thing is there’s new technology. A smoke alarm that was manufactured 20 years ago has a different sound than the newer smoke alarms, so the newer smoke alarms have a standard they have to meet.”
Make sure you have enough smoke alarms to cover the entire home.
“Install smoke alarms in every bedroom,” Crane said. “Install them outside of each sleeping area, and also install them on every level, including areas like your basement, even if it’s an area that’s not occupied. A lot of people, their basement has their furnace, maybe their washer, their dryer, their water heater. Those are things to consider because those things have the potential for fire.”
Visit the National Fire Prevention Association on the web to learn more about Fire Prevention Month.
