A FIRE tragedy in Elland has brought new calls for smoke alarm safety.
Firefighters say more than half the house fires in West Yorkshire are caused by cooking appliances such as unguarded grills or chip pans.
The recent tragic death of a young mother in her Elland home has brought calls from the safety industry for a new form of smoke alarm. She is thought to have died from smoke from a chip pan fire after batteries were removed from a fire alarm.
Paul Holland, a spokesman for the FireAngel company - which makes the plug-in FireAngel alarm - urged homeowners to install such devices.
He said they got rid of the problem of flat or missing batteries.
But John Brownbridge, West Yorkshire Fire Service's community fire safety officer, has reservations about plug-in alarms.
He said: "For a smoke alarm to be totally effective it must be flush to the ceiling.
"These plug-ins will presumably be fitted quite low.
"In some cases this may mean the smoke rising and coming back down again before the sensor is activated," said Mr Brownbridge.
More than 600 people die in fires in Britain each year and 16,000 are injured.
