We switch to Daylight Saving Time this weekend, moving clocks forward officially at 2:00 AM Sunday but with most people doing it before they go to bed tonight..
Remember the adage Spring Forward, Fall Back and you won’t be an hour late for church or whatever plans you have for Sunday morning.
South Dakota Fire Marshal Paul Merriman says this is also a good time to change the batteries in smoke alarms, whether you think they need to be changed or not, just to make sure they’re working and ready to save lives.
Merriman says statistics from the National Fire Protection Association show just how important it is to have a working smoke alarm in your home.
- From 2014 through 2018, smoke alarms sounded in more than half (54%) of the home fires that were reported to U.S. fire departments.
- Almost three of every five home fire deaths resulted from fires in homes with no smoke alarms (41%) or no working smoke alarms (16%).
- The death rate per 1,000 in reported home fires was more than twice as high in homes that did not have any working smoke alarms compared to the rate in homes with working smoke alarms (13.0 deaths vs. 5.8 deaths per 1,000 fires).
- In fires in which the smoke alarms were present but did not operate, two of every five (41%) of the smoke alarms had missing or disconnected batteries.
- Dead batteries caused more than one-quarter (26%) of the smoke alarm failures.