Good Morning America (ABC) - Oct. 31, 2002:

“An ABC News affiliate in WISN in Milwaukee conducted a test with two families. The station installed cameras in the bedrooms of 8 children, then had the local fire department use a smoke generator to activate the alarms outside the children’s bedrooms…Seven of the eight children either did not wake up to the alarm at all or woke up too late to escape, had there been a real fire.”

“This does not mean to abandon your alarms. They work, especially when they are close to the parent’s room. The more alarms the better since there is a greater chance of hearing one that is close to you. Consider putting in wired smoke alarms instead of battery-operated ones. In these systems, when you have a fire or smoke in one part of the house, then all the alarms go off. This gives you more time to get out.”

The Early Show (CBS) – March 4, 2004:

Meri-K Appy, president of the Home Safety Council, states: “Fire is the leading cause of unintentional injury or death in young children. New research shows that children are not waking up to the sound of smoke alarms, so parents need to be extra vigilant about having more than one alarm in the house to be sure the adults awaken and get kids to safety. There are ways to interconnect several fire alarms in the home.”

NFPA Journal (National Fire Protection Association) - July/August 2003:

Judy Comoletti, assistant vice president of NFPA’s Public Education Division, states: “Every family should know who will – and won’t – wake up to the sound of the alarm so they can accommodate any special needs. If someone is hard to rouse, she recommends installing additional hardwired, interconnected alarms in every bedroom…and encourages families to design an escape plan that assigns an adult who awakens easily to rouse sound sleepers.”

KATU-TV (Portland, Oregon) – December 5, 2002:

“If fire breaks out in your home, your kids might not hear the smoke detectors. KATU learned that in recent tests conducted at a local home…. They watched intently, as five children ages 1 through 11 slept through 12 long minutes of shrieking smoke detectors.

‘If this is indicative on the majority of the population out there, we’re going to have to change how we teach everybody fire safety,’ said Lt. Bill Conway. ‘We’re going to have to start focusing on the parents and have them more responsible to take care and self rescue their kids.’”

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