I moved to the villages in 1999 and have yet to hear that a smoke alarm saved anyone's life. What I have read about in the newspaper is that a lot of people were helped by neighbors who spotted their roof on fire. On rare occasions, a roof will be hit by lightning and the resulting fire doesn't set off any smoke alarm, at least not for a while. It always seems to be neighbors who save the day by warning residents to get out of the burning house.
Has anyone ever heard of a smoke alarm saving a life? I have lived most of my life without a smoke detector, so it seems strange that so much attention is now paid to having a working smoke alarm.
To put this in perspective, heart attacks are much more common but I don't see any commensurate level of worry. It would be interesting to know how many times greater your chances are of dying from a heart attack.
