Need more proof smoke detectors can save lives?

Fire safety is one of those things we tend to take for granted. It’s not like keeping gas in the car or food on the table — smoke alarms require only twice-yearly attention.

Actually, in the case of a certain class of alarms we’ve recently been made aware of, they might not even need that. Once every 15 years is common now, we hear.

But then something like what happened on Snohomish Avenue on Wednesday occurs. A four-plex apartment building that was home to seven people in three families caught fire. Everyone was displaced.

As it happened, for us the story was one of a tough fire, an injured firefighter and those seven people picking up the pieces and trying to move on. But were it not for smoke alarms, it very well could have been a truly tragic story of lost lives and grieving families.

Central Mat-Su Assistant Fire Chief Michael Keenan said residents in the building were awakened by smoke alarms. As they made their way out, Keenan said, two of the people realized that the door out of their apartment was blocked by heat and smoke. They had to exit through a second-story window.

Which is another piece of safety advice — make sure you know all the alternative routes out of your apartment or house. Make time to think about who lives in your house and if everyone can make the requisite jump to safety. Fire ladders are a cheap and easy-to-install life-saving option.

Some other pieces of advice might not apply here, but are still good to keep in mind:

• Check your fire extinguishers. They may need to be recharged.

• If you don’t have fire extinguishers, invest now.

• Carbon monoxide is also a big threat. Install CO detectors if you don’t have any.

• Check them if you do.

• If you live in a rural part of this Valley out in the woods, acquaint yourself with the principles of defensible space and Fire Wise (firewise.org, if you’re interested).

• Be careful with things that start fires — make sure cooking appliances are shut off when you’re done with them, ensure cigarettes are extinguished before you walk away from them, give space heaters plenty of room.

Of course, there are tips for fire safety that would sound oddly specific if we include them here. Our favorite random tip, which we learned from a former fire chief at an apartment fire, is never stub your cigarette butts out in potting soil. Potting soil isn’t just dirt, and it is flammable in the right conditions.

So to encapsulate all those messages that are too specific to list here, we urge everyone to be safe and aware of what’s going on around you. It is so much nicer to report on house fires where everyone’s safe at the end.