The Thunder Bay Fire Service is advising local residents about the Canada-wide recall of a popular combination smoke and carbon monoxide alarm.
The recall involves two models of the Kidde Nighthawk alarm—both of which are hard-wired into a home's electric power— which may fail to operate properly in some instances.
Kidde Canada distributes the alarms, and over 1,500,000 units have been sold across the country.
The recall involves models KN-COSM-IBCA and KN-COSM-ICA with manufacture dates between June 2004 and March 2011.
Thunder Bay Fire Rescue is telling homeowners and tenants to check their devices, and to contact Kidde Canada directly if they have one in their residence.
According to Health Canada, the alarms are white, round and measure five to six inches in diameter. The federal department says the alarms can fail to continue to chirp when reaching the seven-year end-of-life, if the batteries are replaced. In the case of the model without a battery backup, the problem can occur if power to the alarm is cut and then restored.
In either case, this could lead consumers to believe the alarm is still working, posing a risk to people not being alerted to a fire or carbon monoxide incident in the home.
Health Canada says neither it nor Kidde has received any reports of consumer incidents or injuries related to the use of this product, but there have been eight reports of incidents in the United States, with no reported injuries.
