SMOKE ALARMS Kids slow to react, tests show

Some are working on new standards for smoke alarms.
By JOHN W. GOODWIN JR.
VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER
BOARDMAN -- Smoke filled the upstairs of the house and the alarms sounded from nearby smoke detectors -- yet every child in the house continued to sleep.
Those were the results of tests conducted by the fire department on two township families. Firefighters want parents to know it's not enough to rely on minimal smoke detector coverage to wake children in a fire emergency.
Lt. Jim McCreary, fire inspector, said Boardman fire officials decided to conduct a study on the effectiveness of smoke detectors on children after a Wisconsin fire department wrote a report saying many children did not respond to alarms.
"They found out by accident, while videotaping how well kids responded to fire prevention and safety training, that kids were not waking up to these normal 80-decibel fire alarms," he said. "It was taking extended periods of time for these kids to wake up."
Boardman officials selected two families, each with four children, to conduct a similar test. They went to each home and explained fire evacuation procedures and how to devise an escape route.
The tests
A month after planning escape routes and reviewing evacuation procedures, firefighters returned with a machine that emits nontoxic, breathable smoke to give the impression of a possible fire.
The machine was used to fill the hallway outside the kids' bedrooms with smoke, setting off the smoke detectors in the hall.
Only the parents in each home knew about the test ahead of time.
McCreary said twin 11-year-olds girls in one family woke disoriented after about a minute of the alarm's sounding.
They tried to wake the younger two children -- ages 7 and 8 -- who had still not heard the alarm. It took all four kids 41/2 minutes to get out of the house after the alarm first sounded.
McCreary said that after about two minutes of the alarm's sounding in the second home, none of the children -- 4, 6, 7 and 9 -- awoke. They did not begin to get up until their father climbed the stairs and began to call each one by name.
It took five minutes for all the kids to make it out of the house.
Significance of delays
"In a fire ,every second counts," said McCreary. "In four minutes, you could have a house totally involved and we would not have been on the scene because in these cases no one had time to call 911."
Minimal standards call for one smoke detector on every floor, but McCreary said it is safer to install a smoke detector in each room.
Smoke detectors don't work the way officials would like to see them work. "Locally, we want people to know a problem exists," said McCreary.
Still, McCreary said, people should know the importance of having smoke detectors, still the first line of defense in surviving a fire.
He said firefighters are working nationally on new standards for smoke detectors so they will be louder or give off a series of various sounds like a car alarm.
He said some have suggested an alarm with a chip that would record a parent's voice because most children respond more readily to the sound of a parent's voice.
jgoodwin@vindy.com