The first smoke detector, called the “automatic electric fire alarm” was invented by Francis Robbin Upton and Fernando Dibble in the late 19th century its purpose is to detect smoke in a room or other enclosed area and set of an audible alarm to alert nearby people to the impending danger. Smoke detectors provide many positive benefits when installed in the home such as lowering fatality rates, helping prevent small fires from turning into larger ones and some even detect carbon monoxide leaks.
According to an NFPA report house fires where no smoke alarms were present caused an average of 940 deaths a year and approximately 514 injuries per year. The report also states that in 100 house fires the death rate was twice as high in home with no or non-working homes; and that in homes with smoke detectors the occupants were likely to be in the room of origin for the fire. Also a survey conducted by the American housing survey found that “sixty one percent of the respondents had detectors that were powered by batteries only, one third (33%) had detectors that were electrically hardwired with battery backups and that seven precent had electrically powered detectors only.” This survey also found numerious violation of NFPA 101, life and safety code. This code requires new homes being …show more content…
In an article published by the Fayetteville observer contained a questioner from the NFPA found that “ 42 percent of the 36,000 people who answered it did not know that they should have smoke detectors in their bedrooms.” And according to Spring Lake fire department Chief T.J. McLamb “Half of all home fire deaths result from fires that occur between 11 P.M and 7 A.M when most people are asleep.” Capt. Ronnie Willet, Fayetteville Fire department’s Fire and Life Safety educator states “National statistics cannot be