The End of Daylight Savings Time is The Time to TURN Your Clocks Back and TEST Your Smoke Alarms

Written by: Rosalind SE Carney, volunteer

Could your family escape a home fire in less than 2 minutes?

Even if you have multiple smoke alarms and a well-rehearsed fire preparedness plan, you and your family may still only have less than 2 minutes to escape a home fire. Smoke alarms reduce the risk of dying in a home fire by almost 50%. Therefore, the Red Cross recommends that when you TURN your clock back this weekend, you also TEST your smoke alarms.

Seven people die in home fires every day, mostly in homes that do not have working smoke alarms. Sadly, the elderly and children disproportionately lose their lives in these tragic disasters. The Home Fire Campaign, started in 2014, aims to reduce home fires by 25% by 2020. The Sound The Alarm campaign has installed one million free smoke alarms and provided fire prevention education to over 400,000 households.

Help the Red Cross achieve their goal and keep your family safe by implementing these smoke alarm guidelines.

Smoke alarms should be:

• located outside each sleeping area and on every level of your home;
• interconnected so that if one alarm sounds, all the alarms in your home sound;
• tested once a month using the test feature on the alarm;
• equipped with new batteries when daylight savings time starts and ends;
• installed in areas where your pets will also hear them;
• activated all the time and never temporarily disabled during cooking etc.;
• used as a reminder to check that your carbon monoxide alarms are also working; and
• replaced every ten years.

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