The fire alarm.

I am fire phobic. 

Although when I was young I could have won prizes for the depth of my sleep, if there was fire I was always the first there. 

When I was 16, my mother collapsed from exhaustion Christmas morning, and while her syncope was being investigated at the hospital, I made the Christmas dinner.  This was the first meal I had made  for the whole family and guests were coming.  As part of the preparation for the guests, I cleaned out the ashes in the fire place, and left them outside the house. 

Winnipeg in December is pretty cold. 

However a couple of nights later I was awakened by the sound of the door bell.  Someone passing by in the back lane had seen tires behind the house burning and flames going up the back of the house.  The ashes  I had thought were dead had started to burn.

Another time blankets in one of the kids bedrooms were pushed against a night light.  I woke to the smell of smoke and pulled the smouldering bedding out of the house.  The only damage was to a few floor tiles. 

More recently I was visiting a friend in South Carolina.  A week after I returned to Montreal she phoned me to tell me her house had burned to the ground.  The garage door opener had been malfunctioning and smouldered  for some days, then caught fire.  The fire chief told her that if anyone had been home they would have died, because they would have been so sedated by the carbon monoxide that by the time the fire alarm went off, they would not have heard the alarm. 

Previously we had had a carbon monoxide alarm in the house. But it kept going off, and each time it sounded we called the fire station, and they sent a fire truck with lights flashing and sirens going, and they checked the house and found there was no carbon monoxide in the house.  Finally we  put the alarm between pillows and returned it to Canadian Tire, where they "fixed" it with a hammer.  We had been reluctant to replace the carbon monoxide alarm, but given my friend's experience I got one for the upstairs and the one floor main floor. So far, as long as we have not heated alcohol or burned the toast, the carbon monoxide alarms  have behaved themselves. 

A week ago I was up in the night and I noticed a "Pip, Pip" about every thirty seconds.  It took me a few minutes to recognize the sound as the fire alarm.  It sounded as though it was coming from the alarm on the second floor landing.   I tried to reach it standing on a chair, but it was too high.  I carried the ladder from the basement and had my husband Hendrik hold the bottom rungs,  I removed the old battery, dated 2010, and replaced it with a new one dated 2014.  But I wasn't sure I had snapped the battery all the way on, and the pipping continued.   Hendrik released the ladder and practically ran down the stairs roaring.

 "What is wrong?"

"I am afraid of heights."

"But you weren't up the ladder.  I was."

"I had fear of heights for you."

Our son Geoffrey got home, all 6'2" of him, and changed the battery while I held the ladder. 

"Pip, pip."

There is another fire alarm in the back bedroom.  The sound did not seem to be  coming from there, but just in case  I brought the ladder in and opened the fire alarm.  There were places for 2 batteries inside, but the attachments for the batteries were just hanging down, empty.  The sort of thing that is really embarrassing to find after the whole family dies in a fire.  I have no idea how that came to be, but I installed new batteries. 

"Pip, pip."

"Darn, that battery we put in in the hall must not be the right brand."  We went out to the hardware store, but that was the only brand they had. 

Back at home, I was a little puzzled that the sound seemed a little louder in the front bedroom than in the hall.  Carefully using my imperfect directional hearing, I found a smoke alarm in a magazine box near the ceiling in the front bedroom.  Once the battery in that was changed the "Pip, pip" stopped. 

Two days later, "Pip, pip." This time it seemed to be coming from the basement.  Quite a feat of precision, considering the batteries have been in for four years.  Now that the batteries in the basement fire alarm are changed the house is quiet.