October 28, 1988
By the President of the United States of America
A Proclamation
Sunday, October 30, 1988, is the day on which Americans in jurisdictions on Daylight Savings Time must turn their clocks back 1 hour to Standard Time. That offers all of us an excellent opportunity to do one other thing simultaneously -- replace our smoke detectors' batteries and then test every detector.
This easy task, maintaining and testing our smoke detectors, is one we cannot afford to neglect. The vast majority of the more than 6,000 fire fatalities in our land each year occur in fires in the home. Smoke detectors are a simple and economical way to prevent needless deaths in fires, because they can alert people and allow them to escape during the early stages of fires. Most American homes have at least one fire detector, but nearly half of these life-saving devices are inoperable at any one time because their batteries are dead or missing. We must all remember that we can avert tragedy by taking a few seconds to replace smoke detector batteries and to check our detectors' operation. That will go a long way toward protecting lives and property all across our Nation.
The Congress, by Senate Joint Resolution 381, has designated Sunday, October 30, 1988, as "Fire Safety at Home Day -- Change Your Clock, Change Your Battery'' and authorized and requested the President to issue a proclamation in observance of this event.
Now, Therefore, I, Ronald Reagan, President of the United States of America, do hereby proclaim Sunday, October 30, 1988, as Fire Safety at Home Day -- Change Your Clock, Change Your Battery. I call upon all Americans to observe this day by replacing their smoke detectors' batteries and by testing their detectors at the same time they return their clocks to Standard Time.
In Witness Whereof, I have hereunto set my hand this twenty-eighth day of October, in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and eighty-eight, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and thirteenth.
Ronald Reagan
[Filed with the Office of the Federal Register, 2:40 p.m., October 31, 1988]
Note: The proclamation was released by the Office of the Press Secretary on October 31.