Most fire-related deaths take place in the two places where people feel the safest: their automobiles and their homes. There's not much a person can do to make their car safer, other than following the enforced laws such as getting your car inspected and respecting speed limits. You can however make your home safer by installing things such as smoke detectors and residential sprinklers; so why is it that in many homes these life-saving safety devices are not found? My father was a firefighter before he died several years ago, so he always took care of things like fire extinguishers and changing the batteries in our smoke detectors. After my mother moved into our new house she realized that when the batteries are running low on smoke detectors it makes a "cerping" sound, and instead of changing the batteries, she removed every smoke detector completely from our house.
This poses a threat to both the occupants, especially at night, and firefighters. For the occupants, if a fire occurred during the night their first sign of something awry would be a smoke detector going off. Without these life saving devices the occupants wouldn't have enough time to exit the structure by the time they woke up, if they woke up at all.
and responded.
My father and brother are both volunteer firefighters. I've
learned a lot from them.
While I don't doubt the stats in the article, I have heard that
you sometimes have 2 or 3 minutes before the entire structure is
on fire. Don't stay in a building thinking that you have time to
save pets or belongings. Get out ASAP and call 911 from a
neighbour's home.
Smoke detectors save lives. You MUST have one on every floor of
your home.