– It was a dramatic experience.
Last week, Steinar Svanåsbakken was at his cabin in Elverum. He was sitting out on the terrace with his friend when they suddenly heard a crash.
– It sounded like a picture falling from the wall. When I went in to check, the entire floor was full of smoke.
He tried to locate the source of the fire and heard crackling inside the bedroom.
– And there the flames were one meter above the floor. I didn’t understand anything, says Svanåsbakken – until he realized that the smoke detector was no longer hanging from the ceiling, but had caught fire and fallen to the floor.
VG wrote on Saturday about Tore Johansen who was shocked when the smoke detector caught fire. He did not know that his smoke detector was a potential fire hazard.
In Steinar Svanåsbakken’s cabin, only a dark spot remained on the floor.
– There was nothing left of it, everything was burnt up, he says.
The two friends called the emergency services and started extinguishing the fire.
– The bed had also caught fire, he says.
Svanåsbakken and his friend were sent to the emergency room because they had inhaled smoke. He is still glad he was at the cabin, and not at home in Bergen, when the fire broke out:
– If I had been in Bergen, the cabin would not be standing now. The smoke detector was connected in series with two others in the cabin, but they did not trigger the alarm until the fire was out.
He does not yet know for sure why the fire started. He had changed the batteries not long ago.
– The fire service said that in this case they believed that the batteries had exploded, he says.
You must pay attention to this
The Fire Protection Association has previously issued a warning against one particular type of whistleblower. These are marked with the number KD-101, followed by some letters. Svanåsbakken does not remember what kind of warnings he had before it burned up. The other two were picked up by the police, he says.
It has happened that batteries self-ignite and start a fire, says Tor Erik Skaar, communications advisor at the Fire Protection Association:
– In this case, it is often a matter of rechargeable batteries. I don’t know what kind of battery is involved in this case at Elverum, but it is quite rare that rechargeable batteries are used in the smoke detector, says Skaar.
It is therefore natural to suspect that this incident is also about the same smoke detector that recently caused a fire in Alta, he says.
– That is, the one marked on the back with KD 101 LD. The problem with this is that you can very easily insert the 9-volt battery with the poles the wrong way round. It is common in this context for such incidents to occur shortly after the last battery change.
Fortunately, what has happened here happens very rarely, says Skaar.
– One naturally gets upset if the most important lifesaver we have when it comes to fire causes the fire himself.
The Swedish Fire Protection Association’s clear appeal is therefore: Check whether you have a smoke detector marked KD101, or whether you have a type that uses a 9-volt battery without a battery pad. This is what a smoke alarm looks like with battery pad out:
– If you have a smoke detector without a battery pad AND which uses a 9-volt battery, it should be replaced as soon as possible, says Skaar.
– When it comes to smoke detectors in the cabin, we would like to emphasize how important it is to check these every time the cabin is used. If you haven’t been there for a few weeks, they may have run out of power in the meantime, and will therefore not work, he adds.
