| Conclusion: Why your smoke detectors may fail when you need them most |
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By: DR. MARK KESTNER, Post columnist
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Posted: Monday, June 8, 2009 8:45 am
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Last week I shared the story of the house fire that temporarily evicted my wife, daughter and I from our home in January. Although we initially thought the fire was an electrical fire coming from an outlet, as the firefighters continued their work it became clear another source was responsible.
As the firemen tore apart the ceiling of my basement garage, they discovered the fire had originated at the fireplace and the entire living room floor was involved. (I later learned that the fireplace was improperly built. Although I had a home inspection, fireplace cleaned and inspected, the problem was between the living room floor and the ceiling of the garage below, so it was not detected.) Across the span of 10 feet, every floor joist was completely charred and smoldering. As the firemen broke open more areas of ceiling, the exposure to oxygen accelerated the blaze.
Within minutes the entire basement was filled with smoke. The firefighters opened the garage door. The smoke was clinging to the upper half of the basement space and began rolling out of the garage doors. As I squatted to breathe, it was difficult to see the upper half of the firemen just feet in front of me. I left the basement. They had respirators. I didn’t.
One disturbing element of this whole incident was that the smoke alarm system did not respond to the accumulating deadly smoke and combustion gases as they filled the main floor. Only when the firefighters had torn open the ceiling below and the smoke began pouring out did the garage alarm sound.
Since the fire, I have learned a lot about smoke alarm systems. It turns out that most residential systems consist entirely of what are known as ionization type detectors. These types of devices detect fires with a lot of flames (or burnt toast), but are not very reactive to smoky, smoldering fires. Unfortunately, this means many lives are lost in the middle of the night from fires similar to the one that occurred at my house.
The fire fighters began to pack up shortly after midnight. My wife and I re-entered the house to assess the damage. The entire house had been saturated with smoke. At one point I had stood in the street looking back at my home as it appeared to be totally engulfed in streams of smoke pouring from every opening. I was sure that my whole house would be lost.
The Murfreesboro Fire Department crews were great. Each member took a moment to stop and sincerely express their concern and ask if they could do anything at all to help us. The commander spoke with me after the fire was out. He told me that if we had gone to bed that night, we would have likely never left that house alive.
I realized that if Eliana had not reacted to the toxins of the smoke, we would have been in bed and never would have seen the first sign of smoke. The girl is barely a year old and already saving lives. She was the only “smoke detector” that worked that night.
Unfortunately, you probably have the exact same kind of smoke detectors in your home. Building codes require a smoke alarm in each bedroom and each hallway, but do not specify what kind of detector. The cheapest kind is the ionization type and therefore these are most commonly installed.
For best protection, a combination type of smoke detector is available. The combination type has both an ionization type sensor and a photoelectric (optical) sensor, which is more sensitive to smoldering fires. Needless to say, I have switched every detector in my home to the combination type. While researching this story, one expert stated he would not go to sleep tonight if he did not have this combination type of device in his home.
I found the devices locally at Team Electric. Surprisingly, it was not expensive to upgrade. They are also available at other hardware stores. Look for combination ionization/photoelectric type alarms.
Next week: A story about a celebrated local fisherman. You’ll enjoy it!
Dr. Mark Kestner
mkestner@DrKestner.com
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