2002 Study on Kids and Smoke Alarms

Researched and written by Lieutenant Jon Cohn

The North Shore Fire Department was approached by WISN-TV, Channel 12 to participate in a feature news story. The story would focus on children and their preparedness and reaction to a fire in the home. A similar story was conducted by another television in another city. The North Shore Fire Department agreed to participate, but felt that “our kids” would be prepared and shine.

The North Shore Fire Department educates over 5,000 school children (4-year-old kindergarten through 4th grade) each year during October. Our commitment is to provide age appropriate, small class size, fire education. This requires that we utilize the entire month of October instead of simply Fire Prevention Week. Based on our efforts and teaching, we were confident that “our” kids would perform exceptionally well

However, what occurred during our eight-month investigation will most likely change the smoke detector industry and the way we educate those we serve.

Their Story and Their Results

When the North Shore Fire Department was initially approached by Channel 12, we watched a video story conducted by another news station from a different state. Their story focused on two families, each with one child.

Each family agreed to allow the fire department to enter their home after the child had fallen asleep and smoke up the hallway/sleeping area with a non-toxic smoke-producing machine. The television crew would then videotape the actions of the children from several vantage points.

The children were informed that this “test” would be occurring some time during a specific week, but the exact night was not given. The results of their first test showed that each of the children were unprepared and deficient in their actions to escape their home in the event of a fire.

After the first test was completed, the fire department visited their home and reviewed the videotape actions with the parents and child. During this time, a firefighter presented and reviewed the components of a home fire escape plan (crawl low in smoke, sleep with the door closed, feel the door with the back of the hand, etc). The child and parents were encouraged to ask questions and practice what was taught, because another test was on the horizon.

After several weeks, the fire department and television crews went back into the home. Following the same set of rules as the first test, the child would once again be tested after being instructed on particulars of the home fire escape plan. Once again with the specific night not being known, the test was conducted. As expected, the children’s performance showed marked improvement after being presented with and practicing their home fire escape plan.

After viewing their story, the North Shore Fire Department and Channel 12 agreed that this was a worthwhile story.

Our Story and Our Results

The first step was to find families in the North Shore Fire Department service area to give our story the “local spin.” We approached a principal in one of our schools that we work with during fire prevention month. (Having a good relationship with the schools in your district pays off.) The principal approached several families and found us two willing families.

Pre-test: Family #1:

The first test was conducted in May of 2002. The home was a single story ranch in which three young boys each slept in separate bedrooms adjacent to each other. Mom and Dad stated that they briefly had talked as a family about fire prevention and a home fire escape plan.

The boys slept with their doors open and there was a single station (not interconnected) smoke detector located in the hallway outside the three bedroom doors. Listed below are the boy’s names, ages, results, and times.

Lucas, age 6, took one minutes and thirty seconds to escape to the window.
Ari, age 10, took just over three minutes to crawl through the smoke filled hall and out the front door. Ari did not wake to the smoke detector, but to the yelling and screaming of his 6 year old brother who did awake.
Nick, age 8, took four minutes and thirty seconds to escape to the window. Nick, like Ari, did not wake to the sound of the smoke detector, but to his brothers yelling.

After the drill, the children were asked several questions. The children stated that they thought they heard the smoke detector sounding earlier, but did not respond because they thought it was the sound of the oven timer or a cellular phone.

When we left the home, I was disappointed in the response and preparedness of the children. How could children who received fire prevention education since age four respond so poorly and some not at all?

Pre-test: Family #2:

A few weeks later we visited Family #2. The home was a two story with all five children sleeping on the second story of the home. Mom stated that they had briefly discussed fire prevention and a home fire escape plan as a family.

The five children slept in three separate bedrooms. There was a single smoke detector located in the hallway outside the three bedroom doors and a smoke detector with light in each bedroom. There was also an interconnected smoke detector in the hallway; however it was not connected to any other detector on the second level. Listed below are the children’s names, ages, results, and times.

Joseph, age 14, got out of bed twice with the detector sounding, but went back to bed each time. Finally at five minutes, he escapes through a smoke filled hallway. Joseph does sleep with his door closed; the detector in his room was sounding and the light was activated.
Alyssa, age 13 and Adriana, age 12 sleep in the same room. They sleep with the door open; in addition to the hallway detector sounding, the detector within the bedroom was sounding with light activated. Alyssa and Adriana did not wake to the sound of the smoke detector, so Mom was sent in at eight minutes to wake the girls.
Jordan, age 11 and Lee, age 8 sleep in the same room. They also sleep with the door open and along with the hallway detector sounding, so was the detector within their bedroom and the detector light was activated. Jordan and Lee also did not wake to the sound of the smoke detector, and Mom awoke them at over eight minutes.

Once again, disappointment. Older kids, but similar results. Pride in our fire prevention education was waning.

The Review

The next step was to re-visit each of the homes. We sat down in front of the TV/VCR and reviewed their videotaped actions or in this case inactions. We discussed what happened, what did not happen, and the appropriate actions that should have taken place. We then went through all of the components of a home fire escape plan step-by-step:

Feel the door with back of hand; if warm/hot, go to window.
If door is cool, open it a crack and if clear crawl out.
If smoke is in hallway, go to window. Don’t jump, simply yell for firefighters at the window.
if they could get out of the home safely, go to the family meeting place.

Questions were answered and the families were encouraged to practice their fire escape plan prior to our next visit.

Post-test: Family #1:

The second test occurred in September of 2002. Following the same process as the first test, here are the results after a personalized fire escape plan was presented to each family.

Ari, age 10, was awake when we arrived and caught us setting up. Therefore, his actions we excluded.
Lucas, age 6, did not wake to the smoke detector. Lucas slept for over ten minutes with the alarms sounding at which time we had Ari start yelling. Yelling did awake Lucas.
Nick, age 8, also did not wake to the smoke detector. Nick also slept for over ten minutes with the alarm sounding, until Ari started yelling. The repeated yelling did wake Nick.

Immediately after finishing with Family #1, we proceeded to Family #2 for their post test.

Post-test: Family #2:

Once again, we followed the same process as the first test. Here is Family #2’s post-test results.

Alyssa, 13 and Adriana, 12 woke up to the sound of the smoke detector and escaped in two minutes.
Joseph, 14 also woke to the smoke detector, but took four minutes to exit his room.
Jordan, 11 and Lee, 8 did not wake to the sounding smoke detectors. At sixteen minutes, Jordan and Lee continued to sleep while the detectors were sounding. Although there was a detector in their bedroom, was it too far away? Therefore, a smoke detector from an adjacent room was removed from the ceiling and was brought increasingly closer to the sleeping children. The detector was placed about one foot away from Jordan’s ear and he finally woke. The detector was then placed about one foot away from Lee, but he continued to sleep, never waking.

After the disappointing results of the pre and post tests, we discussed the unexpected findings. No longer were we testing the ability of children to react and perform in the event of a fire, but their ability to simply wake up to the sound of an activated smoke detector. How could children be expected to follow a home fire escape plan and make appropriate decisions, if they could not even wake up to the sound of the smoke detector. The results were concerning, worthy of further exploration, and explanation.

Experts React

The findings of our investigation led us to Dr. Mark Splaingard, a pediatric sleep specialist at Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin. Dr. Splaingard confirmed our findings and said “smoke detectors cannot be relied upon to reliably wake up young children in the middle of a fire.” Dr. Splaingard stated that many children under the age of 13 sleep so soundly, especially during the first two hours of sleep, that a smoke detector is not loud enough to wake them. The typical smoke detector emits an 80 decibel signal. Dr. Splaingard cited a Canadian study conducted in the 1980’s that showed only 1 in 20 children waking to a sound of 120 decibels, 50% louder than a smoke detector. No longer was it a coincidence that so many of the children in our study did not wake to the sound an activated smoke detector.

Richard Burkowski, a federal government fire safety engineer and the federal government’s leading authority on smoke detectors stated, “this information has just not come to light before.” Burkowski admitted that the problem has been overlooked and left parents in the dark about their children’s safety.

WISN 12 News traveled to the facilities of Underwriters Laboratories (UL). UL is the organization that sets the standard for fire safety equipment used around the world. John Dregenberg of UL stated he was not aware of any testing that had been done with children and smoke detectors. Echoing Dr. Splaingard, Dregenberg stated “we do know that children have a much deeper sleep than adults.” However, Dregenberg went on to further state that he was not aware of any testing that was done to see at what sound level children wake up. Dregenberg further stated that the standard will likely now change as the result of this investigation.

Dregenberg stated that they would immediately begin to work with smoke detector manufacturers to study the problem. Dregenberg said, “UL will take this information and use it in our standards development process.”

Dregenberg further stated “UL is very happy to have this information and a public service has been performed by finding and providing this information.”

The Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) in Washington has never tested smoke detectors to see if they are loud enough to wake a sleeping child, until now. CSPS will shortly begin a two-year study on the problem.

How can we improve our fire prevention education?

The North Shore Fire Department visits school children in their classes from four-year-old kindergarten through the fourth grade. Each grade is given a specific, age appropriate lesson presented by firefighters to classes small in size (no auditorium presentation, but individual classroom presentations). We believed that our efforts were effective, but besides “our” kids not waking up, they still performed relatively poorly when they did wake. Therefore, we must further evaluate our current methods of teaching fire safety.

We educate the school children and rely on them to take the message home, further discuss, and practice it with their family through fire education homework that we provide them. We essentially, “plant” the fire prevention education message and expect them to take it home and “cultivate” it into a specific plan for their family. This is not happening.

As an effort to present the message directly to the parents, we sent a letter to the schools inviting parents to attend an in-school field trip, so parents would be present with their children when firefighters were in class presenting there fire education. Unfortunately, very few parents showed up.

The fire service should look at the way in which Police Departments are educating school children by school’s opening up their curriculum to include D.A.R.E. One grade could be identified as a target group and instead of receiving only one fire education session during the school year, several educational sessions could be scheduled. Several topics could be thoroughly taught and reinforced. Realizing that staffing is often stretched thin, lesson plans could be developed and initially taught to teachers who could then present the information to their students, assisted by firefighters when possible.

We need to challenge ourselves to find a method in which we fire educate children and parents simultaneously. This could be accomplished through monthly fire station open houses, firefighters presenting information during school open houses or parent-teacher conferences, setting up an informational booth in the local shopping mall, or by further increasing our presence in the local media.

Does this investigation change our fire prevention/education message?

This study confirms the importance of not leaving children unattended. Children differ physiologically, psychologically, and emotionally from adults and cannot be expected to perform and react as adults.
Preventing fires should be the number one priority and the first line of defense against fire. Smoke detectors are essential should fire prevention efforts fail and a fire occur.
Smoke detectors are still effective tools that statistically improve your chances of surviving a fire.
Smoke detectors must be tested monthly and properly maintained including changing the battery at least once a year.
Smoke detectors are just one element of an effective fire escape plan.
Parents must create, discuss, and practice a fire escape plan with their family. Once the plan is created it should be practiced several times, including when the children are asleep. Each element of the fire escape plan should be evaluated and if necessary changed. For example, if a child should not wake to the sound of the smoke detector, this must be incorporated into the fire escape plan.

The North Shore Fire Department and Channel 12 – WISN is proud to have been the first to uncover this relatively unknown problem with children and smoke detectors. Since our story/investigation aired, several news outlets in conjunction with their local fire department have repeated the story and found similar results. Nonetheless, if using this story, please remember that smoke detectors are effective at recognizing a smoke condition and sounding an alarm. These findings by no means diminish the need or usefulness of smoke detectors, but instead reinforce the need for creating and practicing a home fire escape plan.

When this study was done, Jonathan Cohn was a Lieutenant with our Department. In 2007 he accepted the Fire Chief position at the Greendale Fire Department. Jon is active in all areas of public education and life safety including; school programs, the Juvenile Fire Safety program, and fire investigations.

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