A few seconds - that's sometimes all you might have to get you and your family to safety in the event of a house fire. Those precious seconds are increased when you have a working smoke alarm.
Many of us have smoke alarms in our homes, but many still do not. That's why a provincial campaign has started to get the message across that smoke alarms do save lives in B.C.
Last week Minister of Justice and Attorney General Shirley Bond and the president of the Fire Chiefs' Association of B.C., Len Garls, launched a campaign intended to ensure that every home in the province has a working smoke alarm.
The new campaign is a co-ordinated approach to make sure all homes have proper, functioning smoke alarms. The Fire Chiefs' Association and the Office of the Fire Commissioner will lead a steering committee of stakeholders on the local, provincial and national level with a focus on the three Es of injury prevention - education, environment and enforcement.
The campaign includes a call to action on behalf of local fire departments to address the issue in their communities. We can say with certainty that our Coast fire departments spread this message constantly, and on more than one occasion, a working smoke alarm in a house fire saved families' lives here on the Coast.
Other aspects of the campaign include developing school-based curriculum for fire prevention, working with multi-residential building managers to maximize protection within their residences, working with the federal government to create a national smoke alarm day and looking at utilizing the insurance act to compel annual testing of smoke alarms upon policy renewal.
It's an aggressive plan, but one that has lots of merits - and the stats back it up.
Data from the Office of the Fire Commissioner shows that in 11,000 residential fires in B.C. from 2006 to 2011, nearly 70 per cent of the fire scenes examined either had no smoke alarm or the smoke alarm was not working properly.
According to a University of Fraser Valley (UFV) study, which is aiding this education campaign, there is a greater risk of fatality from residential structure fires for households with young children, older adults or people with disabilities, rental units, and households in low-income areas, in rural communities and on First Nation reserves.
The UFV study also found that 69 deaths across Canada could be prevented each year if all Canadian homes had working smoke alarms.
The findings from this study tell the story.
There should be no excuses any more for anyone to not have a working smoke alarm in their home. It's a simple matter of common sense and safety for you and your family. Why take a chance? Make sure your smoke alarm works.
