Concerned that some younger children are not aroused from sleep by the sound of an activated smoke alarm, Underwriters Laboratories Inc. (UL), a safety testing and certification laboratory assembled a Standards Technical Panel (STP) to study and investigate this phenomenon, and to write a report on their findings. The STP set up two ad hoc working groups.

The first, composed of pediatric sleep experts, safety engineers, government officials and manufacturers, were tasked to gather information and make proposals for future research to better understand the physiological and technical aspects of the issue.

The second group included members from UL, the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA), fire prevention and educational specialists, and manufacturers. Their task was to develop educational and publicity campaigns to raise public awareness of smoke alarm and fire safety issues.

On July 31, 2003, the STP released its recommendations for improving the effectiveness of smoke alarms in waking children. Summarized into four points they are:

• During sleep, most children less than ten years of age are developmentally incapable of arousing from a pure tone auditory stimulus of 85 decibels to a level of wakefulness that can result in rapid performance of procedural tasks required to escape from fire/smoke hazards. Although adolescents are more likely to awaken to smoke alarms than younger children, evidence suggests that adolescents up to age 16 do not awaken consistently.
• Pure tone auditory stimuli during sleep that do not cause full waking may result in no response, confessional arousals or brief un-sustained awakening.
• Objective, scientific data regarding arousal and/or awakening of children to other types of alerting stimuli are not available.
• During sleep an appropriate procedural response to a stimulus during a fire/smoke emergency requires sustained awakening with performance appropriate to extricate oneself from the hazard. Data reveals that children remain sleepy and aren't able to respond, even to the sounds of most commercial smoke alarms. Furthermore, panic during emergency conditions may also adversely influence a child's behavior and performance.

The STP conclusions and recommendations based on these findings are:

• The majority of children between the ages of birth and five years are developmentally incapable of responding appropriately during fire/smoke emergencies. Caretaker rescue is the only reliable method to decrease morbidity and mortality in this age group.
• Children ages 5-16 years of age are unlikely to awaken fully to auditory stimuli currently produced by commercially available smoke alarms.
• There exist no standardized scientific data regarding arousal and/or awakening to other types of non-biological stimuli in this age group.
• Therefore, pending further research, rescue is the only currently known reliable method to decrease morbidity and mortality in sleeping children when faced with a fire/smoke emergency.

Their recommendations align in principle with the Office of State Fire Marshal's (OSFM) and Oregon Life Safety Team's (OLST) consensus that smoke alarms are still effective early warning devices and save lives, but are only a part of a fire survival strategy and must be combined with a home escape plan and acceptance of personal responsibility to be effective. A Best Practices Guide for the Oregon Fire Service is posted on the OSFM website at www.sfm.state.or.us.

Click here to download the UL STP research group's complete six-page report, Childhood Awakening In Response to Smoke Alarms, and read the data that lead to the conclusions, recommendations and suggested areas for further research.

The Consumer Products Safety Commission, a research participant, has begun a two-year study to examine some of the issues raised in the report, including methods and devices to overcome the existing problems and improve the currently available alarms.