Published ASHI Reporter, June 2013:

Silent Alarms; Deadly Differences:
By
Skip Walker, ACI, MCI
Imagine your car air bags
deploying randomly when you hit a pothole or speed
bump but failing to deploy over half the time in a
collision. That is the stark reality with the smoke
alarms that are most often found in North American
homes. Like most, I had always assumed that a smoke
alarm was a smoke alarm. What I now know is that
there are two basic types of residential smoke
alarms sold in the U.S.: ionization and
photoelectric. In real-world fatal fires, these two
types of alarms behave very differently. In this
case – different is not good. Understanding the
difference could very well save your life.
“A smoke detector that sounds approximately
nineteen minutes after smoke reached its sensing
chamber is like an airbag that does not deploy until
nineteen minutes after
a car accident.”
- Judge David E.
Schoenthaler, Mercer v. Pitway/BRK Brands (First
Alert)
Over 90% of U.S. homes have ionization sensor smoke
alarms installed. Around 5% of U.S. homes have
photoelectric sensor alarms installed. Approximately
4% have no alarm of any kind installed. (footnote 1)
Back in the 1960s, residential smoke alarms were
almost unheard of and the fire death rate was about
7 to 8 fatalities per 1,000 U.S. home fires. Between
the mid-70s and now, we have gone from about 10% of
U.S. homes having smoke alarms to 96% of U.S. homes
reporting having at least one smoke alarm. (footnote
2) Surprisingly, after installing smoke alarms in
over 100 million U.S. homes over 30 years, the odds
of dying in a fire remain about the same. Perhaps
it’s just me, but that doesn’t make sense.
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