(File Photo of the American Red Cross logo)

Noah Haswell, Beaver County Radio News

(Pittsburgh, PA) The American Red Cross is reminding people to not only turn their clocks ahead one hour on Sunday, but also to give their smoke alarms a test. According to a release from the American Red Cross, Greater Pennsylvania Region, over the past year, local Red Cross volunteers responded to help more than 6,100 people across Pennsylvania affected by more than 1,500 home fires, which account for most of the about 65,000 disasters that the Red Cross responds to annually across the country. The American Red Cross recommends to put smoke alarms in each level of your house and to find a replacement to smoke alarms that are ten years old or more. In case of a fire, the company also encourages people to have a meeting spot away from home and to both have and execute a fire escape plan to escape your home in two minutes or less.