Make sure your smoke alarms are working this Fire Prevention Week
Oct. 9, 2024
Picture this: You’re cooking and suddenly something on the stove starts burning and your smoke alarm goes off. You're in a hurry, so you just take the battery out of the smoke alarm, set it aside and tell yourself you’ll put it back in later.
Most of us have been there. But can you remember if you actually did put that battery back in? Or is your smoke alarm going to fail when you need it most?
Our State Fire Marshal (SFM) division is marking Fire Prevention Week 2024 — which runs Oct. 6-12 this year — by urging you to make sure your smoke alarms are working. Our records show that there were 156 fires last year where the smoke detector was present but failed to go off.
By far, the most common known reason alarms don't work is lack of power. Take this week to double-check your smoke alarms, making sure each one has a battery and all those batteries work. Taking a few minutes now can save the lives of you and your loved ones.
Fires double in size every 60 seconds. That’s one of the reasons smoke alarms are so important: They give you the critical time you need to safely escape a fire. Without a working smoke alarm, your chances of surviving a house fire are cut in half. Those aren't good odds.
As of Friday, 53 people have died due to a fire this year in Minnesota, according to preliminary SFM data.
“I’ve seen the agony on someone’s face and heard the devastation in their voice when they lose a loved one in a fire. It’s heartbreaking,” State Fire Marshal Dan Krier said. “Tragic loss changes people forever and that’s one of the reasons we want to do our part to prevent fire deaths.”
Make sure you have working smoke alarms outside of every bedroom and on every level of your home. Place your alarms on the ceiling if possible. If they are on the wall, they must be no more than 12 inches below the ceiling.
We recommend that you interconnect your home's smoke alarms. This way, when one sounds, they all sound. You should also teach children the sound of the smoke alarm and to exit your home when it sounds. If you don’t, they may get scared and hide instead of quickly getting out of the house and to safety.
Smoke alarms save lives — but only if they work. Test your alarms monthly and change the batteries twice a year. Smoke alarms do expire, so look for the manufacture date and replace alarms more than 10 years old.
If you have a working smoke alarm, you have about three minutes to get out of your burning home. When you're faced with a wall of fire, you don't have the time or luxury of thinking about an alternate escape route for the first time. That’s why we encourage you to come up with a plan now, before the emergency hits.
Your plan should include multiple ways to get out of a home — whether it's through a window or a door — as well as each room. Think about how you'd exit a second story room if you're trapped by fire. Hint: Close the door, open a window and be ready to alert firefighters when they arrive. Do more than just come up with a plan this week — practice it with your family.
Waiting for later could have tragic consequences.
