Power Off to Hard-Wired Detector in Nine-Fatality House Fire, Peoria, Illinois, April 11, 1989, with Supplement on Role of Smoke Detectors in Fatal Townhouse Fire, Annapolis, Maryland.

摘要

A fire originating in the first floor of a two-story, wood-frame house with two rental units in Peoria, Illinois killed two adults and seven children on April 11, 1989. Two other adults and a teenager were injured, though they were able to escape from the burning house onto a porch roof from a second story window. This was the worst life-loss fire Peoria for at least the past three decades. Although the house was equipped with hard-wired smoke detectors on each floor, the electricity on the circuit powering the first-floor detector had been turned off inadvertently when the power company disconnected power to the first floor apartment for non-payment of bills. The detectors on both floors were wired on circuits individual to each apartment. The second floor detector was wired correctly and had power, but whether it operated during the fire was not determined.