Hate it or love it, Daylight Savings Time begins again tonight. And as always, the FDNY wants to remind New Yorkers to check and/or change the batteries in their smoke and carbon monoxide alarms to ensure everything's up and running.
Fire officials are handing out batteries and fire safety literature at subway stations all over town from 4 to 6 p.m. today, with locations including the Union Square Station at 14th and Broadway, the 149th Street- Grand Concourse Station in the Bronx, the Jamaica Center-Parsons/Archer Station, and the Crown Heights-Utica Avenue Station at Utica Avenue & Eastern Parkway (full list here). “In 2015, more than 80 percent of fire deaths occurred in private homes or apartments where there was no working smoke alarm present,” FDNY Commissioner Daniel Nigro said in a statement. “No one device can save your life from a fire like a working smoke alarm - it gives you the critical early notification you need to escape,”
Though some smoke alarm batteries have a 10-year lifespan, it's still a good idea to check yours every six months or so, just in case. When my apartment building caught fire in the middle of the night last year, there wasn't a single working smoke detector on the premises, and we were lucky some neighbors knocked on our door to wake us up. Fire and carbon monoxide poisoning are no joke, so it's best to be safe and double check.
