BRADFORD folk have been urged to have a testing time today as part of a vital home safety check.

West Yorkshire Fire & Rescue has today lunched the #TestItTuesday campaign to encourage people to try out the smoke alarms in their homers

The service’s tweet says: “Hit the button & make sure your smoke alarm is working! It could save your life.”

The service has also given advice and tips to residents on how to test the smoke alarms in their homes.

Advice on their website says: “Most people are aware they need an alarm in circulation spaces (landings and hallways), and may think that this means their home is sufficiently covered. But most fires start in rooms that are used the most – particularly if these rooms are used for smoking or have electrical equipment.

“Examples of high risk profiles include a teenager who has a lot of electrical equipment in their room, a person with a mobility issue or use of candles or heaters in the home.”

“The use of sealed battery smoke alarms is also encouraged as sensors can degrade over time and lose their effectiveness at detecting smoke.

“Rather than replacing a battery every year the entire unit can be replaced at the end of its effective life. Units are tamper proof and so battery cannot be removed.

“This can be a problem with ionisation alarms due to their rate of false alarming.”

Most homes have smoke alarms installed (95 per cent) but in nearly 20 per cent of accidental house fires in the UK, alarms failed to activate.

The most common reasons were that the smoke failed to reach the detector and because batteries were either missing or defective.

People have been urged to:

- Replace alarms every 10 years – Even if they appear to work when tested

- Fit additional alarms in the rooms used most

- Install interlinked alarms, so when one activates they all do

- Purchase sealed unit alarms, so that batteries cannot be removed or tampered with.