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The Importance of Fire Alarm Testing and Maintenance
Each year nearly 400,000 residential fires break out in the US resulting in thousands of deaths, nearly two thirds of which are in homes where there are no smoke alarms at all, or no working fire alarms due to battery malfunction. As well, hundreds of people perish due to CO-poisoning deaths in homes with no carbon monoxide alarms.
While these deaths are a sad loss to local communities, many if not most of them can be avoided by simply having fire and CO detectors in the home, with fire alarms outside of every sleeping area. However, simply having fire and CO alarms is not quite enough. If these alarms are not outfitted with fresh batteries every six months they could fail in the event of a fire or CO leak and could result in fatalities. This is why testing and maintaining your alarms can be vitally important to you and your family.
Here at the Park City Fire District we have a simple way of remembering to change out your batteries and ensure your alarms are in working order—change your clock, change your batteries. That is, every time we spring forward or fall back an hour, we change the clocks in our homes and, while doing so, change out the batteries in our alarms.
This simple rule will help you remember this incredibly important, yet simple step in maintaining your CO and fire alarms and, thus, keeping your family safe in the event of an emergency.
Remember, change your clock, change out those batteries in your alarms. Don’t forget to test the alarm after installing the battery to ensure the battery is in place and functional.
Stay safe Park City, and enjoy the extra sunlight at the end of your day!