Press
Release - For Immediate Release
February 4, 2000
NEW PUBLIC SERVICE TO IMPROVE SMOKE ALARM PERFORMANCE
AND REDUCE FIRE DEATH RATES
Note from SFPE: "The information on this page is provided as a service to our membership. TestYourSmokeAlarms.com is NOT associated with the New England Chapter of the Society of Fire Protection Engineers. We make no warranty as to the accuracy of the information being provided."
Do
the smoke alarms in your home work? How about those of your family, friends
and neighbors?
As a member of the fire safety community, you probably test and maintain
your smoke alarms. And you hope the people you care about do, too. But
a recent NFPA study found that the smoke alarms didn't work in three out
of every ten smoke alarm-equipped homes that had fires. Three out of every
ten homes - that's a frightening statistic. Especially when you consider
the fact that 80 percent of all U.S. fire deaths occur in the home.
You know smoke alarms are important. The chance of dying in a residential
fire is cut in half when smoke alarms are present. But that's only if
they work. And according to the U.S. Fire Administration, there has been
a steady rise over the past ten years in the percentage of fires where
a smoke alarm was present but did not operate. People are aware of the
need to have smoke alarms, but they forget about the need to test and
maintain them. Everyone says they test their smoke alarms. But let's face
it - we often forget.
The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission did a study and found that
46 percent of the residents in households in which no smoke alarms worked
thought all of them were working. Scary thought, huh? With that in mind,
TestYourSmokeAlarms.com was created as a free public service.
TestYourSmokeAlarms.com is a home fire safety Web site that distributes
a free, monthly e-mail newsletter. Each month, our subscribers receive
an e-mail reminder to test their smoke alarms along with brief, practical
tips they can use right away to make their lives, and the lives of the
people they love, a little safer. It's a small but vital service. The
free monthly TestYourSmokeAlarms.com reminder can help reduce fire death
rates by improving smoke alarm performance - and you can help.
Tell your co-workers about this free service. Post this message on the
office bulletin board. Get the word out to local SFPE chapters. You just
might save a life.
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