Cactus Village Community

TIMELY ADVICE FROM THE PHOENIX FIRE DEPARTMENT

Jul 19, 2003

Your family?’s chances of surviving a home fire double when there are working smoke alarms in the home. The Phoenix Fire Department recommends that to be safe, you replace the batteries twice a year and your smoke alarms before they are ten years old.

Quick facts:
Missing or dead batteries are the main reasons smoke alarms do not sound in response to a fire.
After ten years, your smoke alarm has worked over 87,000 hours!
A smoke alarm has a limited life?—like any household appliance that works 24 hours a day.
If you don?’t know exactly how old your smoke alarms are, you should replace them just to be safe.
More than 77 million smoke alarms across the country are outdated. That?’s 1 in 3!
About 16 million homes nationally have non-functioning smoke alarms.
A child was injured or killed in two-thirds of home fires because a smoke alarm wasn?’t working properly.
More than 800 children age 14 and under die in home fires each year. That?’s 17 children each week.
Fire is the second leading cause of unintentional death in the home. Each year, nearly 3,200 people die in residential fires.
Most deadly fires in America occur during the night, between 10 P.M. and 6 A.M. The majority (51.6%) of victims of home fires die in their sleep because they are unable to smell the smoke. Smoke alarms are the best remedy. . . ☻