Coming soon in NFPA Journal: the history of home smoke alarms

Late last week, I traveled to Worcester Polytechnic University to interview David Lucht, the founder of the school's Fire Protection Department.  Professor Lucht is the author of "Where There's Smoke" - a feature in the upcoming issue of NFPA Journal. The story chronicles Duane Pearsall's unintended "discovery" of a technology that launched a revolution in affordable home smoke alarms, and his subsequent efforts to bring the device to market. In this photo, Professor Lucht holds an example Pearsall's first smoke detector (circa 1972).  Crude by today's standards, It was combined a number of innovations (portable, affordable, and battery-operated) that made it hugely successful with the American public and helped save thousands of lives.

Both the video interview with David, and the story will be available later this week, so stay tuned.

Comments

[Charlie]

Will be looking forward to watching this video. We run many Fire Safety courses annually and it never ceases to amaze us just how many people still do not have one of these cheap, affordable lifesavers!!