CHICAGO (AP) — Illinois’ Office of the State Fire Marshal is reminding residents to test and change the batteries in their smoke alarms when they reset their clocks for Daylight Savings Time this weekend.
Clocks fall back an hour on Sunday. State Fire Marshal Matt Perez says that’s a “built-in reminder for us all to check that our smoke alarms are working in case of emergency.” Illinois law requires every household to have smoke alarms within 15 feet of every bedroom and at least one smoke alarm on each floor of a home.
The National Fire Protection Association says that between 2009 and 2013 three in five home fire deaths happened in homes that didn’t have smoke alarms or had smoke alarms that didn’t work.
