I saw a news thingy on this a few weeks ago, only one kid in about four actually recognized what the alarm was, got out of bed, and headed downstairs as he had been trained to do. KIda can sleep thru anything, and most smoke alarms sound a too high a freq for old ears like mine. I can not hear the things unless I am right next to them. So we have one that, in addition to the high pitched beeps, has a female voice saying "Fire, Fire, Fire," or "Warning, Carbon Monoxide." Those I can hear...

I thought the sound of a female voice got tuned out long before the high pitch sounds disappeared.

Nope, 'specially not at 0400...

You'd be amazed at how many fires are rolled up onto where some parent is yelling "my baby!" - sometimes when there's no kid inside (sleep over, Dad's weekend, etc) Kids get left often enough that it's not uncommon...

Notice hotels have the strobes with the alarms. Hard to miss the blinking light; I think they were invented to wake the deaf.

Just my 2c....we JUST had our smoke detectors go off.....we too live in Florida....all the smoke detectors go off when one goes off.....(new construction)....an ant got into the detector and set it off.....my wife had to wake me....I barely remember hearing it.....she teased me the next morning....said that one of the most important 'survival' 'skills' that I should have, I don't.....being able to wake from sleep to address a survival situation.......at least I know that she'll wake me.

I can't say I'm surprised by it though.....I am one of the few people I know of that has actually fallen asleep underwater....while on a (safety) decompression stop while SCUBA diving. And no I didn't have a full face mask....the regualtor was in my mouth.....