Major Changes To Queensland Smoke Alarm Laws Are Coming

A decade on from the Slacks Creek house fire, a vital change to Queensland’s smoke alarm laws is still being rolled out. 

A two-storey home on Wagensveldt Street was engulfed in flames just after midnight in August 2011. Three women, four teenagers and four children under the age of 10 from two families were killed. Three men were able to escape the inferno.

A coronial inquest found smoke alarms could have saved those who were killed. 

The incident prompted major changes to the smoke alarm laws in Queensland yet they are still rolling them out. 

The new laws will require landlords to install interconnected smoke alarms into their properties from January next year and by 2027 all smoke alarms will need to be interconnected. 

Interconnected smoke alarms are able to identify a threat in the early stages of a fire and provide early warnings to people in their bedrooms, which is vital to their safe escape.

Acting Inspector Jamie Pease from Q-Fez explained why interconnected smoke alarms are vital. 

“So where they’re interconnected, if you have a smoke alarm that’s active in another location in the house, it will sound the smoke alarm that’s in your bedroom and wake you so that you’re awake and can take action to get out of the dwelling with plenty of time," he said.

Click the link below to watch QLD Government's Interconnected Smoke Alarms Campaign.

More information about the law changes is available on the Queensland and Fire Emergency Services website. 

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