Silent Alarms - Canadian TV 5 Documents the
Poor Performance of Ionization
Alarms in Smoldering Fires
January 1993,
a fire in the Mercer family's home in
Davenport, Iowa. A baby monitor short
circuits in
the kids upstairs bedroom while they sleep.
The ionization smoke alarms take 19 minutes
to respond to the growing fire. At that point,
both small children were already seriously burned. One
child dies several days after in the
hospital while his parents watch helpless to
do anything. The other child
survives but is scarred for life.
This CA TV 5 program
chronicles the
event and subsequent lawsuit (Mercer v. BRK/Pitway).
The program also includes the results of
independent testing at Texas A&M
university where in one test ionization
alarms responded 19 minutes after the
photoelectric alarms in a smoldering fire. In 3 subsequent
tests, the ionization alarms failed to
respond. The results of another
wrongful death lawsuit are also detailed.