Check Your Smoke Alarm

Your home may have a smoke alarm, but how often do you test it? If it is battery operated it might be time to make sure it still works. When I was looking at national statistics last week I couldn’t find much useful information, but I did find out that 400 people die in fires in homes in the UK every year and you are twice as likely to die in a fire if there isn’t a working smoke alarm.

I went out and bought a new battery for my alarm. Then the next day my neighbour came round saying she nearly burned her apartment down in the night. She likes cooked breakfast cereal but doesn’t have time to boil it in the morning, so she prepares it at night and reheats it when she gets up. Except this time she forgot to turn it off.

Thankfully her little boy woke her up at 3 am saying he didn’t like all the smoke.

It took a while before it dawned on her that she could have killed her family and then she went into shock. She needed reassuring that we all have lapses of concentration when we’re tired, that’s why we have safeguards. The most worrying thing wasn’t that she made a mistake it was that her alarm didn’t go off. Most homes are fitted with smoke alarms. Make sure yours works, and if not buy a new one now.