Prescott’s Fire Chief says testing your smoke alarms is fast, simple, and should be done at least once a month.
Renny Raynor spoke with Moose FM ahead of Ontario’s first ever Test Your Smoke Alarm Day later this month.
The awareness initiative is meant to get people to make sure their alarms’ batteries haven’t run out, and that they’re working correctly.
“You do that by pressing the ‘test’ button on the face of the smoke alarm, and listening for it to beep three times, and that’ll actually tell you that it’s working,” explains Raynor. “Then, if you get a low battery warning, it just chirps every once in a while, so that tells you that it’s time to change your smoke alarm.”
Raynor says there have been more than 130 deaths from house fires in Ontario over the last year, which is what led to the idea for the awareness campaign.
If something is wrong with your smoke alarm and you’re not sure how to fix it, Raynor says you can bring it to the Prescott Fire Department.
“We’ve had several residents call and ask about information regarding the smoke alarm, or someone will drop them by the hall and want us to test them, or whatever the case may be,” he says. “By all means, we welcome our residents asking us for any assistance they would require.”
Test Your Smoke Alarm Day is September 28th.