By Mark Lambert, Director, WVU Fire Service Extension and West Virginia State Fire Training Academy
For decades, the phrase, “Check Your Detector,” has been the cornerstone of fire prevention campaigns. It’s been printed on posters, aired in PSAs and drilled into schoolchildren year after year. And to be fair, it helped to reduce the serious fire death toll of the late 1900s.
But here in West Virginia, and in much of the country, the numbers now tell a different story. Our fire fatality rate remains among the highest in the nation, and year after year, we investigate fatal fires where smoke alarms were missing, battery removed, disabled, ignored or never installed. The message is still out there—but it’s no longer getting through.
We’ve been preaching the same line for 50 years. People have heard it. They nod
along. And then they go back to their lives—many in older homes, rental
properties or substandard housing, where detectors aren’t present or working.
Others simply don’t think it will happen to them.
This isn’t a failure of awareness. It’s a failure of connection.
We can’t just keep repeating, “Check Your Detector,” and hope for a different result. Fire safety messaging has to evolve. That means understanding the barriers—financial, behavioral, cultural—that keep people from acting. It means making safety visible in the places where people actually live and gather. It means rethinking the way we talk about risk and who delivers the message.
We also have to move beyond lectures. People respond to stories, not slogans. They remember a mother who lost a child, a neighbor who escaped just in time, a firefighter who pulled someone out too late. If we want action, we need emotion—and we need to meet people where they are.
The smoke detector message isn’t wrong. It’s just tired. And in today’s distracted world, tired messages get ignored.
If we’re serious about saving lives, especially in high-risk areas like West Virginia, we need more than reminders. We need to start a new conversation—one that people actually hear.