I’ve never given much thought to my smoke detectors other than a) making sure they have batteries, and b) trying to avoid having the fire department show up (again) when Ben burns the bacon. Well, I think it’s time we all gave them some thought.
One of the amazing things about social networking and blogging is the people you “meet” (virtually) along the way. My work blog will have over 6,000 visits this month. That’s a lot of connections. I made a connection last week with a fire chief in California, who is working incredibly hard along with some other passionate guys, to get the message out about photoelectric smoke detectors vs. ionization detectors.
The way I understand it, ionization detectors will sound if there is a flaming fire, but not if it’s just a smoking, smoldering fire. That’s obviously a problem since the window of opportunity to escape from a fire is before the flaming stage. The ionization detectors also sound false alarms frequently, leading people to remove the batteries so they are unprotected if there’s a fire. The World Fire Safety Foundation’s message is that ionization smoke detectors are not safe, and should be changed to photoelectric detectors.
Take 10 minutes and watch this video:
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKOaL84gbYE?rel=0&w=480&h=390]
And if you’re curious about the “Aquarium Test” mentioned in the video, here it is:
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pnlkiZC0dd0?rel=0&w=480&h=390]
Now, go check your smoke alarms.