Key takeaways:
- After the residents seemed to tamper with the smoke alarm, at least one person perished in a fire in a Saskatoon apartment.
Last month, at least one person died in a fire in a Saskatoon apartment after the occupants seemed to tamper with the smoke alarm.
According to the Saskatoon Fire Department, tampering with smoke alarms is becoming more common.
The fire in Pleasant Hill was started by smoking materials that were not properly disposed of.
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According to the building’s fire inspections, the residents tampered with their smoke alarm after being inspected in September. A month later, the fire broke out.
The Saskatoon Fire Department reports that it is receiving increasing calls for residences that do not have functioning smoke alarms.
“With the increased use and legalization of marijuana, it appears that it is being used more freely in the home, and it is setting off smoke alarms,” assistant chief Yvonne Raymer said.
To avoid setting off their alarms, people are tampering with them or taking them down, according to Raymer.
“A lot of people forget to put things back, or they put bags on them,” she explained.
Since the fatal incident, the fire service has discovered that 13 smoke alarms are missing from 10 other residences throughout the city.
“We had another fire, which we’ll term a near miss,” she explained.
“The individual was asleep, but a family member was able to wake him up, but the smoke alarms in that residence were also gone.”
Tampering with a smoke alarm, a carbon monoxide alarm, is a crime punishable by a $25,000 fine.
“If you don’t hear the beep because there’s a fire when you’re sleeping, you’re probably not going to make it out alive,” Raymer added.
She adds that if someone insists on smoking indoors, they turn on some fans or move to another room. Other electric smoke detectors are less sensitive to things like cigarette smoke.
Source: Global News
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