Windsor Fire and Rescue Service is reminding everyone to check the batteries in their smoke alarms when you change your clocks this weekend.
The time will fall back one hour at 2 a.m. on Sunday, November 1, as we move back to Standard Time.
The fire department says it’s a good time to replace the batteries in your smoke detectors to make sure they’re fully functioning in the event of a fire.
Chief Fire Prevention Officer John Smith says a smoke alarm could give you that early detection to escape from wherever you are.
“Your bedroom, where you might be sleeping-we want to get out. We still have a high number of sleeping areas, houses, and apartment buildings that don’t have working smoke alarms,” he says.
On Sunday, October 18, an early morning fire in the Dorchester Apartments in the 2500 block of Lauzon Road near Tecumseh Road East claimed the lives of two people while several others were injured.
Smith says if you have hearing issues, make sure you have a smoke alarm with other detection measures to alert you.
“You want to make sure the owner of your house, if you’re a tenant, that you have a hearing impairment. Unfortunately, we lost two people in a fire. The person who survived was in a bedroom; the door was closed, but she did not hear the smoke alarm going off,” he says.
Smith says he wishes he could check every home in Windsor to make sure it has a working smoke alarm.
“We want people to get out alive. We’re going to have fires, accidents happen, and that’s going to continue. What we don’t want to do is have the fire department show up and somebody be trapped in the house, and they probably had a good chance with a working smoke alarm to vacate the house safely,” he says.
November 1 to November 7 is also Carbon Monoxide Awareness Week.
Windsor Fire and Rescue is also asking everyone to recognize the health risks and danger CO poses.
Everyone is reminded to make sure they have a CO detector installed outside sleeping areas in a home and test their CO detector to make sure it works.
Carbon monoxide is a colourless, odourless, and tasteless gas that’s known as “the silent killer.
Symptoms of CO exposure include headaches, nausea, dizziness, breathlessness, collapse, loss of consciousness, and death.
By law in Ontario, CO alarms are required to be installed outside all sleeping areas of homes with a fuel-burning appliance, fireplace, or attached garage.