Another weekend change – smoke alarm batteries

As Fire Prevention Month comes to a close and we change our clocks from Daylight Savings Time, St. Johns County Fire Rescue wants to remind Historic City News readers to make another change that could save lives – changing the batteries in their smoke alarms.

In an effort to save lives and prevent needless injuries or deaths in the community, St. Johns County Fire Rescue recommends everyone adopt a simple, lifesaving habit: change your smoke alarm batteries when changing your clocks twice a year and test your alarms monthly.

Although the majority of American homes have at least one smoke alarm, a significant percentage of those alarms are found to be malfunctioning or broken.

Almost two-thirds of home fire deaths result from fires in homes with either no smoke alarm or no working smoke alarm.

In most instances where a fire death occurs, smoke alarms were not present. Even worse are the fire deaths or injuries that occur in homes with alarms that simply did not sound.

Changing your smoke alarm batteries twice a year is one of the simplest, most effective ways to reduce tragic fire-related deaths and injuries.

In fact, statistics show working smoke alarms nearly cut in half the risk of dying in a home fire.

If you have any questions relating to smoke alarms please contact St. Johns County Fire Rescue at 209-1750.