San Antonio -- We've always been told - A working smoke detector can save your life. But the News 4 WOAI Trouble Shooters have uncovered something alarming about the most common type of detector; the kind you probably have in your home right now. It can take almost an hour to go off in a fire; and sometimes, it won't go off at all.
A national debate has now erupted on whether we should switch to something else.
One of the most popular smoke detectors a lot of us have in our homes is called an ionization smoke detector. It's very sensitive to burned food in the kitchen, and as a result, many people take the battery out to disable it. But its biggest weakness is that it takes a long time to detect smoldering fires; the kind caused by a cigarette, candle or electrical cord. Those are the types of fires that can slowly fill your home with smoke, and kill you, before the alarm even makes a sound.
That's why some fire prevention experts say we should replace those ionization alarms with a photoelectric smoke detector or, at least, consider using both.
The photoelectric costs just a few dollars more, but is much more sensitive to the slow developing fires that take so many lives.
Dr. E. Don Russell, an engineering professor at Texas A&M, is one of the researchers testing ionization alarms and photoelectric detectors in side-by-side experiments.
"It turns out, that for certain fires, ionization detectors will never go off, “Dr. Russell explained. “Often, they will go off 20, 30 minutes later than the photo electric detector."
We were able to get video of a demonstration done by a fire department in Vermont. A hot iron is placed on a couch to simulate a dropped cigarette. As the cushions smolder, the house slowly fills with thick, toxic smoke that can kill a person while they sleep.
After 20 minutes, the photoelectric alarm goes off. But it takes 50 minutes, a full half hour longer, for the ionization alarm to sound a warning. That's because ionization alarms are better at detecting flames, not smoke. But in many fires, the smoke kills the victims before flames ever erupt.
"(Sometimes) we find them dead in the hallway, or a few steps from the bed, because they didn't get an early enough warning," DR. E. DON Russell told us.
No one knows the urgency of that early warning more than Helen Madla. She lost her husband, State Senator Frank Madla, along with her mother, Mary Cruz, and her five year old grand daughter Aleena, in a smokey house fire back in 2006.
"We didn't have smoke alarms in our house,” Helen Madla remembered. “I don't know if that would have saved Aleena's life, or my husband's life or my mom's life."
Madla says paramedics were briefly able to get a pulse on her grand daughter and her mother the night of the fire. She wonders if a photoelectric alarm might have changed the outcome.
"I know that 20 minutes would have made a difference," Madla noted.
Helen has since rebuilt the family home and it has both ionization and photoelectric smoke alarms inside.
But many San Antonians still don't know about the importance of having a photoelectric detector.
In fact, even our fire department has taken the position that an ionization alarm is good enough.
"Shouldn't you also be telling people to have a photoelectric alarm," News 4 WOAI Trouble Shooter Jaie Avila asked San Antonio Fire Chief Earl Crayton in a recent interview.
"Something is better than nothing,” Crayton answered. “We're not pushing either one. We're saying anything is better than nothing."
But researchers like Russell say continuing to endorse ionization alarms is like recommending an airbag that goes off a half hour after an accident.
"That's a bad argument from a science perspective,” Dr. Russell criticized. “We know more today. We know what the dangers are. We know what the problems are and we have the solution."
The San Antonio Fire Department may not have changed its recommendation on smoke alarms, but the National Fire Protection Association has. It now says, for the best protection you need both photoelectric and ionization alarms. And stores sell them now in one combination unit, for about $22.
The state of Vermont and several cities across the country have passed laws requiring all new homes to have photoelectric alarms, since they are better at detecting slow developing fires. If you don't know which type of smoke alarm you have, just look at the back of it. It should say whether the sensor is an ionization or photoelectric type.
