Last year, residential fires claimed 38 lives in Minnesota; 75 percent of the deaths occurred in homes without working smoke alarms. State Fire Marshal Jerry Rosendahl thinks these facts alone should be enough to convince people to install and maintain smoke alarms.

“Those 38 victims died without time to escape,” Rosendahl says in a news release, “An inexpensive alarm and a set of fresh batteries could have saved their lives.”

Rosendahl suggests that when turning clocks back one hour on Nov. 1, change the batteries in smoke alarms, too. In many communities, people who need help installing or maintaining alarms can call the fire department for assistance.

About 96 percent of American homes have smoke alarms, according to the National Fire Protection Association. A third of the alarms, however, contain dead batteries or no batteries at all. Some batteries simply wear out and are not replaced; others are “borrowed” for use in another device — a habit that Rosendahl says puts families, especially the young and the disabled, in real danger.

“Statistically, working smoke alarms double your chances of surviving a home fire. Changing the batteries takes about one minute, so that’s a huge return on a small investment,” Rosendahl says.

For more information on smoke alarm installation and maintenance, go to www.fire.state.mn.us and choose “Home Fire Safety” from the left menu.