Before we go to sleep at night, we lock our doors and shut off our lights. We never, however, think that while our families are dreaming a fire will start and our fire alarms will fail to warn us. Smoke alarms are crucial necessities in order to protect our families from the devastating effects of fire. We rely on them every night and rarely does it cross our minds that they could somehow fail. Defective products are recalled every single day in this country by the Consumer Product Safety Commission, and fire alarms are no exception.

Unfortunately, however, smoke alarms often do fail. The failure of fire alarms to go off during a fire can be attributed to many factors, including:

· Failure to change the batteries. Batteries in standard smoke alarms should be changed every eight years.

· Some smoke alarms contain long-lasting batteries, in which case the entire device needs to be replaced. Your unit’s instruction book should have advice on how often to change the device and whether or not the device you bought has long-lasting batteries.

· If your smoke alarm contains batteries as a back-up, the batteries need to be checked every other month and the entire alarm should be replaced every eight years.

· Always check your alarms. Regardless of the type of alarm you have, or whether or not it even uses batteries (as opposed to being connected to the household electricity supply), you should test your alarms every few months to be sure they are working properly.

Recently the Consumer Product Safety Commission issued recalls for the SKA700 Kidde Smoke and Fire Alarm made by Walter Kidde Portable Equipment. The Consumer Product Safety Commission advises that anyone who has purchased a fire alarm on or after July 10, 1992 to check the label and make sure it is not involved in the recall. Fire safety is something that should not be neglected and it takes both a smoke alarm and an informed consumer to assure that these alarms alert you at the first sign of a fire.

It is the job of the Consumer Product Safety Commission to alert consumers when products are defective, but if you have been hurt or killed because of a defective product you could be entitled to compensation.