Humid temperatures set off dozens of smoke detectors across Halifax

Humid weather is causing smoke detectors to go off all over the Halifax Regional Municipality, including three false alarms at the Halifax infirmary.

Halifax Regional Fire and Emergency saidon Monday aloneit had to respond to 52 calls across the city. Of those, more than half of themwere because asmoke alarm was triggered by humidity.

"When humidity is high, we respond to a lot of calls,"saidKevinReade, a division commander for Halifax Regional Fire and Emergency.

"[The majority] of the calls that we had yesterday and today are all due to humidity."

While crews responded to calls at hospitals, businesses, apartments, and homes in the heat on Monday,Reade said most people weresurprised to find outhumidity is to blame.

Reade said a certain type of smoke detector called an ionization detector often mistakes humidity or steam for smoke.

"The ionization ones fall victim to high humidity, burnt food, bugs, dust, debris. Anything like that can set them off," he said.

Reade said people should look at installing a photoelectricsmoke detector instead, which will only activate from smoke.

Read said despite the volume of false alarms in the heat, firefighters stilltreat each one like it's an emergency, and that means sending a crew to each call.

Reade said if you aren't able to change the smoke alarms in your building, thereisn't much you can do to prevent them from being set off. Even if you think humidity might be the culprit, you should still call 911.

"If your smoke detector goes off, you have to call the fire department. We're the professionals. We're the ones that can determine whether it's a fire ornot," he said.

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