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5. Fire Safety
Limitations of Smoke Alarms
WARNING: Please read carefully and thoroughly.
•
NFPA 72 states: Fire-warning equipment for residential occupancies
are capable of protecting about half of the occupants in potentially
fatal fires. Victims are often intimate with the fire, too old or too
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 would be 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. For maximum protection, Kidde recommends that
both ionization and photoelectric alarms be installed.
•
A battery powered alarm must have a battery of the specified type,
in good condition and installed properly.
•
A.C. powered alarms (without battery backup) will not operate if
the A.C. power has been cut off, such as by an electrical fire, an
open fuse or circuit breaker.
•
Smoke alarms must be tested regularly to make sure the battery
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 sleeping room or on a different
floor, it may not wake up a sound sleeper.
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