Shakopee Share Change The Alarm

Press release from the City of Shakopee:

March 16, 2021

When Shakopee East Middle School teacher Jackie Yego first started distance teaching this fall, she assumed the occasional background chirp she heard was just an annoyance one student had to deal with while trying to learn from home.

"After time, I realized I was hearing chirping from more than a handful of homes, and I began to worry for my students’ safety," Yego said.

Yego reached out to Shakopee Fire Capt. Rob Indrebo to provide the students with some life-saving advice for dealing with the chirping alarms. He joined several of Yego’s online classes to provide a short instructional about how smoke alarms work, how to test them and how to change the batteries.

Smoke alarms chirp to indicate their batteries are dying. However, when not addressed immediately, the chirping may become a background noise people get used to and start ignoring, Indrebo said. Eventually, the battery will die, the chirps will stop, but the alarm is no longer useful for notifying residents of smoke in the house.

“It’s alarming to think a teacher noticed so many chirping alarms she reached out to us,” Indrebo said. “There are probably a lot more dead smoke alarms out there than we think.”

The best way to ensure your smoke alarms work properly is to test them regularly and replace the batteries every six months. Alarms should be replaced every 10 years.

Smoke Alarm Safety

» Every sleeping room should have a working detector, as well as the hallway outside a bedroom.
» Test all smoke alarms at least once a month.
» Replace all smoke alarms when they are 10 years old.
» It is best to use interconnected smoke alarms. When one smoke alarm sounds they all sound.
Source: National Fire Protection Association

This press release was produced by the City of Shakopee. The views expressed here are the author’s own.