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Winter is coming, how are your batteries looking?

It is that time of the year again, and time to chack your smoke alarms. I have popped this little note on the website to get everyone motivated. Not motivated yet? well here is a story for you.

Kevin Kennedy (formerly the head of FPIS) recently recounted an incident which occurred at Christmas time in the United States some many years ago, but proves a sobering lesson on complacency of this. A couple were sitting in the lounge of their house when the Christmas tree suddenly and spectacularly caught fire. The couple managed to quickly get onto the burning tree, and smothered it with a rug from the floor, extinguishing the fire. They cleared the tree and aired the living room out, but on retiring for the night routinely checked their children upstairs and found them both dead in their beds. The fire, contained without the Fire Department, had produced enough fumes to asphyxiate the children without the parents being any the wiser.

This story is decades old, but the point does not age, in fact the story is worse now. Modern furnishings which are made from poly-anything will burn like petrol. They emit an abundance of nasty vapuors like carbon monoxide (which makes you sleep deeper) and hydrogen cyanide (no good news here either).

Smoke alarms get you out of bed and out of the house safely. Go check the batteries. Go to our downloads page and take the sheet on smoke alarms, check yours then email to some friends too. You might even save a life.

» Related link: http://www.ffp.co.nz...