WHAT TO DO IF THERE IS A FIRE
IN YOUR HOME
If you have prepared family escape plans and practiced them with
your family, you have increased their chances of escaping safely.
Review the following rules with your children when you have fire drills
so everyone will remember them in a real fire emergency. If the
smoke alarm should sound:
a. Don't panic; stay calm. Your safe escape may depend on thinking
clearly and remembering what you have practiced.
b. Get out of the house following a planned escape route as quickly
as possible. Do not stop to collect anything or to get dressed.
c. Open doors carefully only after feeling to see if they are hot. Do
not open a door if it is hot; use an alternate escape route.
d. Stay close to the floor; smoke and hot gases rise.
e. Cover your nose and mouth with a cloth, wet if possible, and take
short, shallow breaths.
f. Keep doors and windows closed unless you open them to escape.
g. Meet at your prearranged meeting place after leaving the house.
h. Call the Fire Department as soon as possible from outside your
house. Give the address and your name.
i. Never re-enter a burning building.
Contact your local Fire Department for more information on making
your home safer from fires and about preparing your family's escape
plans.
NOTE: Current studies have shown smoke alarms
may not awaken all sleeping individuals, and that it
is the responsibility of individuals in the household
that are capable of assisting others to provide
assistance to those who may not be awakened by
the alarm sound, or to those who may be incapable
of safely evacuating the area unassisted.
WHAT THIS SMOKE ALARM CAN DO
This smoke alarm is designed to sense smoke entering its
sensing chamber. It does not sense gas, heat (except for the 380T),
or flames.
When properly located, installed, and maintained, this smoke
alarm is designed to provide early warning of developing fires at a
reasonable cost. This smoke alarm monitors the air and, when it
senses smoke, activates its built-in alarm horn. It can provide
precious time for you and your family to escape from your residence
before a fire spreads. Such an early warning, however, is possible
only if the smoke alarm is located, installed, and maintained as
specified in this User's Manual.
NOTE: This smoke alarm is designed for use within a single
residential living unit only; that is, it should be used inside a
single-family home or one apartment of a multi-family building. In a
multi-family building, the device may not provide early warning for
residents if it is placed outside of the residential units, such as on
outside porches, in corridors, lobbies, basements, or in other
apartments. In multi-family buildings, each residential unit should
have smoke alarms to alert the residents of that unit. Smoke alarms
designed to be interconnected should be interconnected within one
family residence only; otherwise, nuisance alarms will occur when a
smoke alarm in another living unit is tested.
IMPORTANT NOTE: WHAT SMOKE
ALARMS CANNOT DO
Smoke alarms will not work without power. Battery-
operated smoke alarms will not work without batteries, with dead
batteries, or if the batteries are not installed properly. If you are
concerned about the reliability of either the batteries or your AC
power supply for any of the above reasons, you should install both
battery and AC powered smoke alarms for maximum safety.
Smoke alarms may not sense fires that start where smoke
cannot reach the devices such as in chimneys, in walls, on roofs, or
on the other side of closed doors. If bedroom doors are usually
closed at night, smoke alarms should be placed in each bedroom as
well as in the common hallway between them.
Smoke alarms also may not sense a fire on another level of a
residence or building. For example, a second-floor smoke alarm
may not sense a first-floor or basement fire. Therefore, smoke
alarms should be placed on every level of a residence or
building.
The horn in your smoke alarm meets or exceeds current audibility
requirements of Underwriters Laboratories. However, if the smoke
alarm is located outside a bedroom, it may not wake up a sound
sleeper, especially if the bedroom door is closed or only partly open.
If the smoke alarm is located on a different level of the residence than
the bedrooms, it is even less likely to wake up people sleeping in the
bedroom. In such cases, the National Fire Protection Association
recommends that the smoke alarms be interconnected so that a
device on any level of the residence will sound an alarm loud enough
to awaken sleepers in closed bedrooms. This can be done by
installing a fire-detection system or by using radio frequency
transmitters and receivers.
All types of smoke alarm sensors have limitations. No type of
smoke alarm can sense every kind of fire every time. In general,
smoke alarms may not always warn you about fires caused by
violent explosions, escaping gas, improper storage of flammable
materials, or arson.
NOTE: This smoke alarm is not designed to replace special-
purpose fire detection and smoke alarm systems necessary to protect
persons and property in non-residential buildings such as
warehouses, or other large industrial or commercial buildings. It
alone is not a suitable substitute for complete fire-detection systems
designed to protect individuals in hotels and motels, dormitories,
hospitals, or other health and supervisory care and retirement homes.
Please refer to NFPA 101,The Life Safety Code, and NFPA 72 for
smoke alarm requirements for fire protection in buildings not defined
as "households."
Installing smoke alarms may make you eligible for lower insurance
rates, but smoke alarms are not a substitute for insurance. Home
owners and renters should continue to insure their lives and property.
PLACEMENT OF SMOKE ALARMS
THIS EQUIPMENT SHOULD BE INSTALLED IN
ACCORDANCE WITH THE NATIONAL FIRE PROTECTION
ASSOCIATION'S STANDARD 72 (National Fire Protection
Association, Batterymarch Park, Quincy, MA 02269).
For your information, the National Fire Protection Association's
Standard 72, reads as follows:
NFPA 72, 2007 Edition, Chapter 11, Section 11.5.1.1 Where
required by applicable laws, codes or standards for a specific type of
occupancy, approved single and multiple-station smoke alarms shall
be installed as follows:
1) In all sleeping rooms and guest rooms
2) Outside of each separate dwelling unit sleeping area, within 6.4m
(21ft) of any door to a sleeping room, the distance measured
along a path of travel
3) On every level of a dwelling unit, including basements
4) On every level of a residential board and care occupancy (small
facility), including basements and excluding crawl spaces and
unfinished attics
5) In the living area(s) of a guest suite
6) In the living area(s) of a residential board and care occupancy
(small facility)
The installation of additional alarms of either the smoke or heat
type should result in a higher degree of protection. Adding alarms to
rooms that are normally closed off from the required alarms increases
the escape time because the fire does not need to build to the higher
level necessary to force smoke out of the closed room to the required
alarms. As a consequence, it is recommended that the householder
consider the installation of additional fire protection devices.
However, it should be understood that NFPA 72 does not require
additional smoke alarms over and above those called for in Figures 1,
2, 3 and 4 where required smoke alarms are shown.
Pg. 3-2
Figure 1: A SMOKE ALARM SHOULD BE LOCATED ON EVERY
LEVEL OF DWELLING UNIT, INCLUDING BASEMENT, WITHIN
EACH SLEEPING ROOM AND OUTSIDE SLEEPING AREAS.
Figure 1
