Twenty people have died in fires in Maryland so far this year, and fire investigators say smoke alarms could have saved some of those lives ? including in two recent fatal fires in Anne Arundel and Harford counties.
Capt. Ed Hadaway, a spokesman for the Annapolis Fire Marshal?s Office, said the Halsey Road fire that killed a retired Naval Academy professor and his wife Thursday did not have to be deadly.
“There were not any working smoke detectors in the house,” Hadaway said Monday. “Had there been working smoke alarms in that house, those people would have stood a much better chance of surviving.”
Hadaway said several portable electric heaters caused the fire that killed Reuben and Helene Alley.
In the case of a fatal fire that killed Jerome Shropshire, his wife and three grandchildren in Harford, fire investigators said they never found evidence of any smoke alarms in the house.
“In over 50 percent of all fatal fires ? nationwide ? there is either no smoke alarm, or the smoke alarm has been rendered inoperable,” said W. Faron Taylor, spokesman for the Office of the State Fire Marshal.
Of the Abingdon fire, Taylor said investigators have been able to narrow the cause of the fire down to two possibilities ? careless smoking or juvenile fire play.
But Taylor said having a working smoke alarm is not enough. Families, especially those with seniors or young children, should develop fire escape plans.
“I have never investigated a fatal fire in the state where folks had working smoke alarms and an escape plan,” Taylor said.
Hadaway even referred to a fire Monday morning on Vineyard Road where an adult and two children escaped because of smoke alarms. “Smoke alarms make a difference,” he said.
Smoke alarms saved an Eldersburg family Sunday, according to Sykesville firefighters.
“That?s the message we?ve been pounding over the past year,” department spokesman Bill Rehkopf said. “We can?t overstate the impact those alarms played tonight. If the family hadn?t heard that sound, it could have been a real tragedy.”
