MEDICINE HAT, AB – Medicine Hat Fire Services wants you to learn the sounds of fire safety.
This week, Oct. 3-9, is Fire Prevention Week and the theme is Learn the Sounds of Fire Safety.
Fire prevention officer Carter Gramlich says there are two distinct sounds a smoke alarm will make.
“Smoke alarms will chirp when they have a dead battery or when there’s another maintenance issue going on,” he says. “If you replace the battery and the smoke alarm is still chirping it’s likely that it’s reached the end of its service life and needs to be replaced.”
Smoke alarms should always be replaced at 10 years old even if they aren’t chirping, he says. After 10 years they become less effective overall.
He adds new smoke alarms and carbon monoxide alarms are designed to intentionally stop working after 10 years.
The other sound a smoke alarm will make is much more urgent.
“If the smoke alarm is going off because there’s an actual fire or there’s carbon monoxide it’s going to be a loud beeping sound,” he says. “Newer alarms are going to do a three-beep, pause, sometimes they’ll say fire as well. If you have a little older device it might just beep consistently but in any event, a loud beeping sound is going to be fire, smoke, you need to get out.”
Gramlich says regardless of the theme this week, it’s a good time to make sure you are practising fire safety at home.
Such as having two ways out of every sleeping area, knowing how to open and get out of windows in an emergency and making sure your smoke alarms are working properly.
“Making sure that you are practicing fire safety, you know whether you’re cooking, if you have an open flame in the house. Making sure you have two ways out of every bedroom,” he says. “Since Fire Prevention Week last year maybe your kids have gotten a little bit older and they’re in a different now. Are they able to safely get to the window do they know how to open it up and get out if they need to. Every sleeping room should have two ways out of every room and yeah for sure want to make sure alarms still working.”
For people with a hearing impairment, Gramlich says special alarms are available. They can provide a visual strobe and can be set up to give a stimulation to wake you up if you’re asleep.
More fire safety tips can be found at the National Fire Protection Association website.
