These Detectors Stop Sounding Rather Quickly. Fire Findings.

Abstract: Fire Findings conducted a test of smoke alarms to see how long the alerting sound lasts. All of the detectors tested responded quickly to the controlled fire, over five minutes before flames appeared. The first detector fell to the ground twelve minutes after it first signaled. The rest followed after fifteen minutes of ringing. All the smoke detectors had stopped ringing before alerting for twenty minutes. For investigators, this means that a fire alarm may have sounded even if the first responding officers do not hear one. Since many units fell shortly after sounding, they will probably be located towards the bottom of the debris. All of the smoke detectors tested fell to the ground during this short controlled fire. To investigators, this suggests that smoke alarms may have existed even though they were not found installed at the fire scene.

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