The detector: Why it couldn't save a firefighter in his own house
Few people could have been more familiar with the terrifying danger of a house fire than 60-year-old Kenneth Watson. In his nearly three decades of service as a firefighter for the Roanoke Fire Department, Watson battled countless blazes, saved victims from burning homes, and consoled grieving relatives of those who'd perished in fires. He also, according to his colleagues and family, tirelessly advocated for smoke detectors, promoting the devices to the public through his work and, on his own time, lovingly pestering his friends and relatives to check their detector batteries.
It's no surprise then, that when a fire broke out in Watson's own home in Vinton, Virginia in the evening hours of December 13, his own smoke detectors functioned as designed, sounding an alarm so loud that the next door neighbors heard it.
Inside the house, however, the detectors were less helpful. The retired firefighter died in his recliner, a victim of smoke inhalation.
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