Worrying new figures have revealed that less than half of properties attended by firefighters during house fires in Northamptonshire in the past year had a working smoke alarm fitted.
A working smoke alarm can mean the difference between life and death, and the Chronicle & Echo is backing a county-wide campaign aimed at increasing the number of homes fitted with the alarms.

But the new statistics have revealed that, out of 463 house fires in Northamptonshire in the last 12 months, 120 homes had alarms that were fitted but not working and 127 properties did not have one at all.

It means that only around 46 per cent of homes in the county where firefighters had to attend had a working smoke alarm.

Claire Tovey, head of prevention at Northamptonshire Fire and Rescue Service, said firefighters would now target vulnerable groups such as the elderly or those who drink or smoke, to ensure they are not the next victim.

She said: "You are twice as likely to die in a fire if you haven't got a smoke alarm.

"If you want to do one thing today to keep you and your family safe, make sure you have a smoke alarm and make sure you're checking it as part of your cleaning routine.

"Everyone thinks it's not going to happen to them but it can.

"It's fundamental that people have them; everyone has a television and smoke alarms are more fundamental than that because it's about your family's safety."

The fire service launched a campaign called Pull Your Finger Out to encourage people to check their smoke alarms, and also offer free fire home safety checks.

Email alerts can also be sent, reminding people to check their smoke alarms.

Officers are also encouraging family and friends of older people to check smoke alarms for them or to have special ones installed, such as those for the hearing impaired.

Miss Tovey added: "There has been an increase in the fires attended where smoke alarms activated, but also an increase in smoke alarms that did not activate or were not fitted."

For more details on the home safety checks,

That is such a good subject to bring up! such a small thing, such a simple thing, but yet so many lives are still lost every year because people,either take the batteries out because they go off when they cook, or don't bother to have them in the first place.

It is heart breaking when you hear about lives being lost for lack of such a cheap and simple preventative measure. Well done for reminding us all fo the importance of having a proper alarm fitted.

I also think so

I agree, a smoke alarm can save your life. The other thing that might be considered is one of those monitors for detecting carbon monoxide I think it is, anyway it is the type of poisoning you get when a boiler or something similar malfunctions. Carbon monoxide is produced from incomplete combustion of fossil fuels. In the home CO can be formed, for example, by open flames, space heaters, water heaters, blocked chimneys or running a car inside a garage.

Since CO is colourless, tasteless and odourless (unlike smoke from a fire), detection and prevention of carbon monoxide poisoning in a home environment is impossible without such a warning device.