Editorial: Smoke detectors easiest way for you to protect your family

If Staff Writer Lauren Rohr's story in Monday's Daily Herald about the speed with which modern homes go up in flames caused you some alarm, then mission accomplished.

Her story detailed how modern building materials, such as lightweight manufactured lumber, modern decorating materials, including carpeting, drapes and furniture that contain more synthetic materials, and modern open floor plans all contribute to faster-burning fires.

Four decades ago, when rooms featured more wool and hide and wood, you might have 17 minutes to get out of a house once the smoke detector sounded. Today, you have just three to four minutes.

Partly it's the speed with which man-made materials burn. Partly, it's the noxious fumes all that stuff generates as it burns.

According to the U.S. Fire Administration, home fires are most likely to occur when you're asleep: Between 11 p.m. and 7 a.m.

Eighty percent of fire deaths occur in the home, and 80 percent of those deaths are attributed to people breathing in poisonous smoke from the flames. Rather than causing you to cough and wake up, it puts you in a deeper sleep.

Why all this doom and gloom?

Because you can do so much to protect yourself and your family.

According to the National Fire Protection Association, three in five home fire deaths result from fires in properties where there are no working smoke detectors. The risk of dying in a home fire is cut in half in homes with working smoke alarms.

People who are serious about home safety replace the batteries in their smoke detectors every six months. Others do it once a year.

And if you've lived in your home for a decade or longer and never replaced the smoke detectors themselves, you must. The sensors simply don't last that long.

The U.S. Fire Administration has several recommendations:

• Put smoke alarms on every floor of your home; in every bedroom and in the hallway outside each sleeping area.

• Choose smoke alarms that talk to each other; if one goes off, they all go off.

Our advice: Don't buy the cheapest smoke detectors you can find. When you bring them home, pull out the factory-installed batteries and use them for less crucial purposes, such as your automatic garage door's keypad or a clock or a child's toy. Buy a new pack of 9-volts that have a use-by date well into the future, and resist the urge to see whether that battery really will last for the five years it claims it will hold a strong charge.

Test your alarms monthly. You probably do already if you like your bacon crispy.

Some fire departments will install battery-operated smoke alarms in your home at no cost. If money is an issue, call your fire department's nonemergency phone number and ask.

'Tis the season to spend money on those you love. Why not start with ensuring that your loved ones get out alive in the event of a house fire?