The Illinois Fire Marshal’s office is urging the public to test their smoke alarms when they ‘fall back’ this weekend.
Daylight savings is a good time to make sure all of your alarms are working properly. Fire Marshal spokesperson JC Fultz says you should replace batteries as necessary or consider installing 10-year sealed smoke detectors.
“Ten-year sealed battery smoke alarms go up on the wall. There is no way to remove the battery. They also have a hush button feature on them. So if you’re a bad cook like myself and you have a little smoke rolling through the house, you can hit the hush button. It disables the alarm for a little bit and then the alarm comes back on.”
Starting January first, Illinois law will require these newer model sealed detectors in all homes built before 1988 or that don’t have hard-wired alarms.
According to the National Fire Protection Association, nearly three out of every five home fire deaths occur in households where there are either no smoke detectors or the alarms didn’t work.
