Cambridgeshire firefighters issued 3,000 homes with faulty smoke alarms

Cambridgeshire firefighters issued 3,000 homes with faulty smoke alarms

Cambridgeshire Fire and Rescue Service (CFRS) issued more than 3,000 households with faulty smoke alarms which could potentially cause a fire, it has been revealed.

The service handed out free FireAngel smoke alarms to local residents as part of a campaign to help prevent fires but has since found that a battery fault could result in them actually starting a blaze, the Cambridge News has reported.

The CFRS has since notified all the affected households about the problem.

Deputy chief fire officer Chris Strickland revealed that a blaze could occur if the lithium battery was dislodged and then suffered a lasting short circuit, which would cause it to overheat.

“Despite the extremely unlikely risk of an incident occurring, CFRS has taken proactive action over the last few months to contact every affected household to replace smoke detectors,” he told the news provider.

“We have also worked closely with the manufacturer to ensure that the risk of battery short circuit in new batches of the smoke detectors has been completely removed.”

Last year, another FireAngel model, the ST 620, was found to be faulty after an independent investigation revealed batches had been damaged by a third-party.

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