Bedrooms smoke alert

Killer fires spark alarm rethink

KILLER fires have spurred a major overhaul of safety guidelines, which will now recommend every bedroom is fitted with a smoke alarm.

Bedroom blazes have caused the most residential fire fatalities and injuries over the past decade.

But less than a fifth of Victorians sleep in rooms with a smoke alarm.

The Country Fire Authority and Metropolitan Fire Brigade will today announce new advice recommending every bedroom as well as hallways and living areas have smoke alarms which all sound when one is triggered.

Previously alarms were deemed necessary only outside bedrooms and in hallways.

A quarter of fatal fires in the past decade started in bedrooms — claiming 22 lives and leaving 117 people seriously injured.

CFA chief officer Steve Warrington said: “It’s really important that you have a smoke alarm in your bedroom, especially if you sleep with the door closed.

“Your sense of smell decreases while you sleep and a working smoke alarm in the bedroom can mean the difference between life and death.”

New research shows only 16 per cent of 2500 Victorians aged 18-64 surveyed had a smoke alarm in their bedroom.

A fifth had only one smoke alarm in their entire home.

MFB chief officer Greg Leach said: “Many of the house fires we attend occur overnight — often at a time when people are asleep. If you don’t have a smoke alarm in your bedroom and fire breaks out at the other end of the home, by the time the smoke gets into your bedroom, it may be too late.”

A new advertising campaign will be launched by the government today highlighting the silent stealth of bedroom fires.

The new advice of having a smoke alarm in every sleeping area is the biggest change to fire safety advice in five years.

“Silence is deadly in the event of a fire, it’s so important to remember that only working smoke alarms save lives,” Emergency Services Minister Lisa Neville said.

Fires originating in lounge rooms accounted for a fifth of fatal blazes in the past decade, ahead of those that started in the kitchen.

Picture: GLENN FERGUSON SOLD: John Major Jr at the site of Major Car Sales on Torquay Rd, which has been a family owned and operated business for more than 60 years.