Fire Safety - Kidde i9010CA User Manual

Fire Safety

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. 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.
• 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.
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