The Editor’s Opinion Page
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Smoke Detectors Save Lives—And Also Create a Problem
Statistics indicate that smoke detectors are doing what they are designed to do—save lives. A modest drop in deaths in one and two-family homes and apartments in 1980 is a hopeful sign and there are indications that smoke detectors played a role in this decline in fire deaths.
A discordant note is struck, however, by the experience of some volunteer fire departments in communities where many more sophisticated smoke detector systems are connected to either an annunciator at a fire department dispatch room or a privately operated central station. Too frequently, the detectors in these systems transmit false alarms that bring a fire department response.
As a result of repeated false alarms—sometimes several from the same occupancy over a period of months—some volunteer fire departments report a decline in the number of fire fighters responding. If they hear on their home alerting radio that a line is being laid, then the stay-at-homes respond.
It’s not a desirable situation, but it is understandable. Volunteer fire fighters will give all kinds of hours to fighting fires and training—sometimes at substantial personal expense—but they resent false alarms as an unnecessary demand on their time.
It’s a situation that calls for a reasonable solution. The quality of the smoke detector has a bearing on the falsing characteristic of the detector, and the fire department should have control over the minimum quality of detectors connected to a remote alarm system. The fire department also should be allowed to exercise supervision over the installation of smoke detector systems—and we are not referring to the couple of detectors that sound only an in-house alarm.
