VIDEO: House fires are devastating, spreading so quickly that even with a smoke alarm, the time for occupants to escape can be limited to just one to two minutes.
You can imagine how drastically that escape time is affected in homes sans alarms. Not good.
In regards to safety, smoke alarms are a must, especially since home fires account for 90 percent of American Red Cross disaster responses each year.
“Every day, seven people lose their lives in home fires across this country — often because they don’t have working smoke alarms and a plan how to escape safely during a home fire,” explains Chris Volmer, Red Cross disaster program manager in southwest Idaho.
In order to reduce fire-related deaths and injuries, the Home Fire Campaign was established in 2014. To date, “volunteers have installed more than 1.5 million smoke alarms and saved more than 500 lives.”