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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 smoldering 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.
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