Smoke from a house fire is not odorless, and it will wake the average person at very low concentration due to the smell and lung irritation. I know not just from literature, but from a room mate merely burning toast slightly from setting it to six and walking away. I believe the sensitivity to smoke and alarm at seeing fire is ingrained as a natural evolutionary danger. During deep sleep what your body is less sensitive to is noise, and some children do sleep through fire alarms (as do some college students as we learned at the dorm, although alcohol was more often than not to blame). The fire detectors are useful because they provide advanced warning when the fire has just recently started, but with multiple occupants sharing a room and it just being a single night, the risk is extremely low there would happen to be a fire that one particular night that no one would notice. Definitely a good idea to have a fire-detector, but failing to have one for an evening is hardly a game of russian roulette, that's all. Just important to keep things in perspective, which I'm sure is easier said than done when its your own kid.
If I ever (accidentally) have one of my own, perhaps I'll better understand.
If I ever (accidentally) have one of my own, perhaps I'll better understand.
