It’s 4:30 in the afternoon when Sadie calls 911. "There’s a fire! But I don’t know where," she tells the emergency operator.

"I’m holding the smoke alarm but I can’t shut it off," Sadie keeps repeating. She’s standing on the porch of her mobile home with a smoke detector in her hands when the fire engine company arrives.

Two firemen in full turnout gear run up to the porch. The older man takes the smoke alarm from the old lady’s hands and examines it. "There’s no sound from this one," says the fireman, "because there’s no battery in it."

Sadie’s face flushes with embarrassment. "But I still hear the alarm," she says.

"You’re not hearing that smoke alarm, ma’am," says the fireman, "but there’s an alarm coming from someplace inside your trailer."

The fireman heads inside. Moments later the fireman calls out to his partner, "Eddie, come back here in the bedroom and bring the lady with you."

Moments later Eddie and Sadie arrive in the back bedroom. "There," says the old woman, "I still hear it — it’s coming from over there."

"Over here by the clock radio?" the fireman asks as he presses the "doze" button, silencing the alarm.

Sadie is really embarrassed. "I thought it was my smoke alarm," she says, "does that mean there’s no fire?"

"No, ma’am, there’s no fire. But that’s a good thing. While we’re here, we’d better take a look at your smoke alarm system." The older fireman tells Sadie her smoke alarm had no battery in it.

"That’s a shame," Sadie says, "because it’s the only smoke alarm I’ve got."

The two firemen go back their truck and return with three small packages. Each contains a new smoke alarm which the firemen install in strategic places — outside the bedroom; in the hall near the kitchen; and in the living room.

"They’ve all got fresh batteries and they’re installed low enough so you can reach them to put in fresh batteries every year," says the elder fireman as they pack their gear and head back to their truck.