Change Your Clocks / Change Your Batteries

Daylight Saving Time begins this weekend, as we Spring Ahead an hour on Sunday morning at 2am. You can wait up for it, but most people set their clocks ahead an hour before they go to bed on Saturday night.

Our fire departments particularly want us to do a few things to save our lives:

• Change the batteries in our smoke alarms
• Replace the alarms every ten years
• Install carbon monoxide alarms and check them monthly

Northshore Fire Marshal Jeff LaFlam says “Saving your life can be as simple as changing your smoke alarm batteries once a year and replacing smoke alarms every 10 years”.  Special smoke alarms are even available for those who are deaf or hearing-impaired.  

The National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) reports that working smoke alarms cut the risk of dying in a home fire in half. Smoke alarms should be installed in every bedroom, in the area outside of every bedroom and on each floor of your home. With the early warning that smoke alarms provide, people have more time to safely escape a burning structure and call 9-1-1.

“You should also install carbon monoxide alarms in your home and check them once a month,” says PIO Wendy Booth.  Carbon monoxide fumes are poisonous and will increase the intensity of a fire if ignited. 

About those clocks. the National Geographic says that Daylight Saving Time is not mandatory for states.

But the federal government doesn't require U.S. states or territories to observe daylight saving time, which is why residents of Arizona (except for residents of the Navajo Indian Reservation), Hawaii, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, American Samoa, Guam, and the Northern Marianas Islands won't need to change their clocks this weekend. 

Everything you ever wanted to know about Daylight Saving Times is in the National Geographic article.