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WARNING: Please read carefully and thoroughly.
• NFPA Standard 72 states: Life safety from fire in residential
occupancies is based primarily on early notification to
occupants of the need to escape, followed by the
appropriate egress actions by those occupants. Fire
warning systems for dwelling units are capable of
protecting about half of the occupants in potentially
fatal fires. Victims are often intimate with the fire, too
old or young, or physically or mentally impaired such
that they cannot escape even when warned early
enough that escape should be possible. For these
people, other strategies such as protection-in-place or
assisted escape or rescue are necessary.
• Smoke alarms are devices that can provide early
warning of possible fires at a reasonable cost; however,
alarms have sensing limitations. Ionization sensing
alarms may detect invisible fire particles (associated
with fast flaming fires) sooner than photoelectric alarms.
Photoelectric sensing alarms may detect visible fire
particles (associated with slow smouldering fires) sooner
than ionization alarms. Home fires develop in different
ways and are often unpredictable. Neither type of alarm
(photoelectric or ionization) is always best, and a given
alarm may not always provide warning of a fire.
• A battery powered alarm must have a battery of the
specified type, in good condition and installed properly.
• AC powered alarms (without battery backup) will not
operate if the AC power has been cut off, such as by an
electrical fire or an open fuse.
• Smoke alarms must be tested regularly to make sure the
batteries and the alarm circuits are in good operating
condition.
• Smoke alarms cannot provide an alarm if smoke does
not reach the alarm. Therefore, smoke alarms may not
sense fires starting in chimneys, walls, on roofs, on the
other side of a closed door or on a different floor.
• If the alarm is located outside the bedroom or on a
different floor, it may not wake up a sound sleeper.
Fire Safety
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