Smoke alarm saves pair

June 27, 2006

By MARY AMES

Frontiersman

MAT-SU - The alarm from a smoke detector early Saturday morning likely saved two lives, but the blaze that tripped it destroyed a home.

A man and his adult son had been drinking in their 30-foot-by-60-foot two-story home at 3780 North Dumbarton Court, off East Schrock Road near Wasilla, when they fell asleep while cooking bacon about 3 a.m., according to a report from Jack Krill Jr., chief of Central Mat-Su Fire Department. The son fell asleep on the first floor, and on the second floor, the father slept in a chair in the living room, adjacent to the kitchen where the bacon was on the stove.

The alarm from the second-floor smoke detector woke the son, who ran upstairs to find the entire floor full of smoke and his father still asleep in the chair. The son woke the father by shaking him, Krill said.

When both were awake, they saw fire in the kitchen. They tried to put the fire out with a fire extinguisher, but the blaze was already too large. Father and son got out of the house safely and called 911 from a cell phone.

Meadow Lakes and Central Mat-Su fire departments responded to the house fire, and the house was 50 percent engulfed when firefighters arrived, Krill said.

Using Central Mat-Su's new engine with compressed-air foam, firefighters had the blaze suppressed in about 10 minutes.

The house had two working smoke detectors, one on each floor that were installed when the home was built in 1984, Krill said. The detectors were hard-wired into the electrical system, without a battery backup. Because the two detectors weren't wired together, only the second-floor detector sounded.

Krill said new homes are required to be constructed with hard-wired smoke detectors that have a battery backup, and the detectors are required to be wired together so that when one goes into alarm, they all alarm. Regardless of the age of the home, smoke detectors are required to be installed on every level of the home and in each sleeping area or bedroom, he said.

The smoke detector saved their lives, Krill said.

&#8220They were very, very lucky that smoke detectors woke them up,” Krill said.

A residential sprinkler system would have held the fire to the kitchen, Krill said, adding that a lot of people don't understand how cost-effective such a system can be.

The cost of a residential fire sprinkler system for a home is estimated to be less than $6,000, if installed after construction, Krill said. Residential fire sprinkler systems installed during construction typically cost 1.5 percent to 2 percent of the total construction cost.

Krill also reminded people to test their detectors monthly, and change their batteries twice each year at the same time they turn their clocks ahead and back.

The Mat-Su chapter of the American Red Cross, assisted the occupants with temporary housing and clothing.

According to the Mat-Su Borough Web site, Dennis and Sharon Cox own the home.

Contact Mary Ames at 352-2284 or mary.ames@frontiersman.com.