We mentioned this to you recently, in the Q&A section "Could a smoke alarm become the fire brigade’s enemy?". Since 8 March 2015, all homes must be fitted with a stand-alone smoke alarm. This requirement has been welcomed by the French fire service, which responds to more than 300,000 fires every year.
Almost four years on, smoke alarms have saved lives. As press reports show, this is a fact. However, one aspect that is just as important as installing them is often overlooked: their maintenance. In Toulouse last year, the fire service was called out 540 times for no reason.
"All it would take is a bit of forward planning"
On each occasion, these were false alarms from the smoke detectors, mainly caused by dust that had built up in the device’s optical chamber, or simply by a flat battery.
“Everyone installed them at the same time, so they’re all running out at the same time. All you need to do is plan ahead and check the batteries regularly,” he told our colleagues at The Dispatch, Lieutenant-Colonel Chauvet of the SDIS 31.