Check your smoke alarm day, please.

[elegantlion]

Multiple choices allowed.

 

Last week a local family died in a house fire. There was no visible damage to the house on the outside, the whole thing is still under investigation. Yet, a father and two young children lost their lives. Today they are reporting the smoke alarms did not have working batteries. I am deeply saddened, because it quite possible that one simple battery operated device would have saved their lives.

 

Please, double check your batteries today. Thank you.

Edited August 25, 2012 by elegantlion

[AmyontheFarm]

Graphic below, not for children to read.

 

My husband is a fire fighter. This is so important. Please check your detectors, as a wife, I don't need my husband coming home depressed that another child has died in a house fire.

 

Also, please make a game of it with your children during your fire safety week and see how many people you can remind in your travels at the store, library, etc! When more people are talking about it, lives can get saved!

 

Also, (personal experience here) please tell your kids to stop texting while driving! My hubby is tired of scraping brains/blood off the road. Sorry to be graphic but this is his real life.

[Snickerdoodle]

I cook all of our meals so the detector gets a regular work out.

 

:D

[SKL]

I know our smoke alarm works, because it goes off every time we make toast. :glare:

 

The bad side of this is that my kids are conditioned to not take the smoke alarm seriously.

 

ETA: We do have another smoke alarm in the middle of the house that is run by electricity and calls the fire dept. Thankfully that one doesn't go off every time we make toast.

[happyhomemaker25]

Great reminder. Also, make sure your kids know the way out during a fire. Our bedroom is on the other side of the house from the kids. We have drilled a few different ways. The girls bedroom is across from the boys. Right now we have my oldest (if she can safely get there) going across to the boys room and helping them out through the window. The 12yo helps her sister out through the girls room window. My oldest boy also knows how to help his brother out through the window in case Karly can't get to them. I am taking the baby out the window in our room. We meet across the street in the neighbors driveway. My cell phone is always right by my bed so I can grab that. This is the scenario for if we are all sleeping. It works too! One night when the power went out our smoke alarms went off because they are hard wired into the house and then battery back up. Dh went to turn it off and saw the kids getting ready to climb out the windows. They were all half asleep but they were doing it. LOL

I need to replace my batteries so thanks so much for that reminder, but we do have a lot of smoke alarms.

I am so very sorry about your neighbor. My mom and dad's house burned down right after I was married. Everyone got out safely, but just barely. It all happened so fast my mom said. The fire was in the wall (old copper wiring in the laundry room). Thankfully, my mom was out there and saw it start. She said there was nothing she could do she just saw the outside of the wall blacken and then the house filled up with smoke. She never even saw a flame. Thankfully, my moose of a brother was there and was able to get my disabled dad into his scooter and out of the house.

[Soror]

We had a house fire so we have one in everyroom and the basement and they are battery operated and hardwire backup. The smoke detector we had before no doubt saved dh's life as he was out cold and even then it barely work him up.

[Tammyla]

We have 8 smoke detectors and 1 carbon, and replace the batteries twice a year when we spring forward and fall back.

[lailasmum]

Our fire alarms are so over sensitive that they go off pretty much once a day when I turn the oven on. It is definitely important to test the alarms and replace them regularly too. We had an alarm go wrong electrically and set itself off becasue it was smoking.

 

We have enough alarms as per recommendations but I think I will probably add a couple more.

 

I have experienced two house fires in my life. The first time our alarm saved us, that was when our fuse box caught fire. The second time our apartment block caught fire a couple of floors above us. Luckily I wasn't home but the place was destroyed.

Edited August 25, 2012 by lailasmum

[besroma]

That is so sad. Thanks for the reminder.

[bluemongoose]

Ours are hardwired and have battery back up. They beep when the battery is dead, but continue working as long as there is power. The beep is annoying, so they do not allow you to leave the batteries dead.

 

Due to our proximity to forest, we also have a sprinkler system in the entire house. It is building code for newer houses in our area.

 

As for the texting/driving comment. I do not have any driving kids, but we do not have texting anyway, so there is no texting and driving going on here!

[sarahf.]

Thank you for the reminder:)

[Soror]

LOL, same here! I had to move it because it went off every single time I cooked.

 

We replace the batters when we change the clocks.

 

Dh put a different kind of detector in the kitchen so we don't have that problem. But we also have the regular ones in the adjoining rooms. Downstairs we have CO and smoke detector combined.

[regentrude]

On this note: make sure you have working carbon monoxide detectors as well. There is no other way to detect CO, since it is color- and odorless.