Smoke alarms are one of the most important safety features you can have inside your home. There are a large number of circumstances that could lead to an unexpected fire breaking out in your home. And if you’re asleep when one of these fires breaks out, you could experience some terrible consequences.

This is why building codes require smoke alarms to be present in every home. They are a simple tool that can save your life along with anyone else in the home.

Smoke alarms are one of those things you keep but hope you never have to use. This is true for many of us. But you want to be sure you know exactly what to expect and what to do in the instance of your smoke alarm jumping into action.

Have a Plan

The first thing you should do actually begins before your smoke alarms ever go off. Get together with your family, roommates, or whoever you share your home with and put together a plan for if the smoke alarms sound the alert.

Discuss possible exit points. Decide on a rendezvous point outside so you can know exactly who is out of the house and who is still inside. This information can be very useful for when the fire department comes. You want to be able to tell them specifics about who is where and how to get them out. This plan can save each person valuable time and increase their chances of escaping to safety.

Visit NCA today and see how their alarm monitoring services can keep your Nashville home safe.

Check the House

The first thing you should do when you hear your smoke alarm is to carefully check your house. Don’t go running through each room as fast as you can — proceed with caution. Pay attention to the way each room smells. You’ll be able to notice the smoke if there’s a fire. An electrical fire might have a bit of a different scent than you normally associate with a campfire. Electrical fires tend to smell more like burning plastic.

Pay attention to the space beneath each door to a new room. If you see a flickering light, don’t go in. Tap each doorknob to see if it’s hot. These are signs of a fire in the next room and that you should immediately evacuate.

But if you check the house and don’t find signs of a fire, check the batteries in your smoke alarm. You want to be sure it’s operating properly.

The Risk

A fire in your home is one of the most destructive accidents that can occur. The National Fire Protection Agency (NFPA) analyzed home structure fire statistics between 2013 and 2017. Their findings provide a glimpse into how destructive and deadly a fire in your home can actually be.

The report found that 79% of every death caused by a fire occurred within a home. And along with that, 73% of all injuries caused by a fire occurred in home fires.

They also found that fire departments in the US responded to an average of 354,400 home structure fires over the course of the five years covered by the study. These fires resulted in an average of 2,620 deaths, 11,220 injuries, and $6.9 in direct property damage per year.

The majority of these fires were the result of five causes:

1. Cooking

2. Heating

3. Electrical distribution and lighting equipment

4. Intentional fires

5. Smoking materials

Of these causes, cooking resulting in the most fires and injuries. Smoking accounted for the most deaths in fires.

Consider Monitored Smoke Detectors

A monitored smoke detector is one of the potentially life-saving alarm monitoring services from NCA in Nashville. Smoke detectors do a great job of alerting everyone in the house of the existence of a fire, but standard detectors stop there. They do nothing to alert anybody outside of the home of the need for assistance. And if a fire breaks out in your home, you are going to need assistance.

Local fire departments are equipped to handle these terrible situations. Sometimes, we become trapped in our own home in the event of a fire. The only way out is going to be with the help of trained firefighters.

Monitored smoke detectors send an alert to local authorities when a fire is detected. This lets them know that you are in danger and where you are located so they can send help. And when it comes to being trapped inside a burning home, every second counts.

This alarm monitoring service helps you even if you’re not home. The monitored smoke detectors send out the alert to local authorities to save your home from total destruction even when you’re on vacation.

The benefits of monitored smoke alarms can not be understated. They can save your life.

Contact NCA today to learn more about their alarm monitoring services in Nashville.