4 Fire Alarm Statistics You Need to Know

Still need some convincing? In this post, we’ll list four fire alarm statistics that show just how important they are…

According to the US National Fire Protection Agency (NFPA), the almost three in five home fire deaths happened after fires in homes without a working smoke alarm. 40% (two in five) were in homes with no smoke alarms at all, while a further 17% (almost one in five) were in houses where the smoke alarms weren’t working.

The same report from the NFPA compares the death rate from fires in homes with and without working smoke alarms.

For every 1,000 reported home fires, there were 12.3 deaths in properties without any working smoke alarms. Again, this was either because the smoke alarms weren’t operative or there simply weren’t any present.

On the flipside, homes with working smoke alarms had a death rate of 5.7 per 1,000 fires. That’s less than half the rate, simply by installing a smoke alarm and making sure it works.

What’s perhaps most alarming is the number of homes that don’t have working smoke alarms. In the four years when the NFPA report was compiled, they found that just 74% of homes with reported fires had smoke alarms installed, and they sounded in only 53%.

In other words, almost half of homes don’t have a working smoke alarm, while over a quarter have none installed at all.

The final statistic looks specifically at smoke alarms that are present but don’t work. In fires where this was the case, the NFPA reveals that 43% of alarms had missing or disconnected batteries. A further 25% of smoke alarm failures were down to dead batteries.

The take-away? Test your smoke alarms at least once a month. With a simple push of a button, you can get complete peace of mind that your alarms are ready to alert you to a fire, giving you and your family more time to escape.

If your smoke alarm doesn’t work, check or replace the batteries and test again. If it’s still not working, you’ll need to replace the alarm itself. On top of that, you should replace your smoke alarms every 10 years as a rule of thumb.

The importance of smoke alarms for domestic and commercial properties can’t be emphasised enough. They could save you a lot of a money by avoiding damage with a quicker response. But more importantly, they could save your life.

If you’re looking to install new fire alarms or replace old ones, the team at Selectron is on hand to help. We provide a wide range of fire alarms to protect properties across Bermuda. Commercial or domestic, we’ll recommend the best products for your requirements and make sure they’re installed to the highest standards.