We switch to Daylight Saving Time tonight, moving clocks forward officially at 2:00 am but with most people doing it before they go to bed.
Use the adage Spring Forward, Fall Back and you won’t be an hour late for church or whatever in the morning.
Fire officials also recommend using the time change to check smoke alarms and replace their batteries as a precaution.
Almost 1 out of every 5 smoke alarms in an American home doesn’t work, often because of dead batteries, and the fatality death rate in those homes is about a third higher than in homes without a smoke detector at all.
Deputy Nebraska State Fire Marshal Pat Gould of Chadron says smoke alarms don’t help if they are not in working order and changing batteries twice a year is a simple and cheap way of making sure they’re good.
Gould says if it seems wasteful to throw away a battery that’s been in a smoke detector only a few months, then don’t.
Gould says the basic recommendation from fire experts is to replace smoke alarms after a decade or if they don’t respond properly to testing.
Gould says one reason smoke alarms are lifesavers is that they can alert you to a fire long before you might smell smoke.
Gould says another reason smoke alarms are lifesavers is that most fire-related home fatalities occur when people are asleep, between 10 pm and 6 am.
Statistics show the death rate per 100 reported home fires was more than twice as high in homes that did not have any working smoke alarms.