One of the items on a crowded legislative calendar this week would require photo-electric smoke detectors in new construction in Vermont and require that they be installed when a house is sold.
A Senate committee has been hearing testimony that ionization smoke detectors, the kind in more than 90 percent of American homes, do not sound as fast as photo-electric detectors in smoldering fires.
Barre firefighters have been leaders in the effort to promote photo-electric detectors.
A fire more than two years ago that killed a family of five occurred in an apartment that had an ionization smoke detector. Firefighters say it wasn’t sounding even though the apartment was full of smoke when they arrived.