Residential fire is a major cause of fire fatalities and smoke alarms are installed to promptly detect and warn people of fires so that action may be taken. Coronial reports of 114 fire fatalities in Australia noted that 81% of the fatal fires were at night and in those, 86% of victims were sleeping. It is thus important that smoke alarms are as effective as possible in waking people up. A review of the research on who will wake up to smoke alarms under what circumstances showed that there were many potentially vulnerable groups in the population, including children, the elderly, people under the influence of alcohol or drugs, and people who are sleep deprived. Most unimpaired adults will awaken quickly and reliably to a hallway alarm under normal circumstances. It has been found that only 6% of children (aged from 6 to 15) awoke reliably (i.e. to two out of two alarm presentations) to the Australian standard smoke alarm (a high pitch beeping signal) installed in the hallway and received at the pillow at 60 dBA. When the volume of the signal was increased to 89dBA at the pillow, by installing the alarm above the child's bed, the percentage who reliably awoke increased to 50%. However, the responsiveness of children is clearly age related, with the younger children being more at risk. Only 29% of those aged 6-10 years awoke reliably to 89 dBA.
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