New Law Requires Smoke Detectors With Sealed Batteries Be Installed In All Homes Built Before 1988

CHICAGO (CBS) -- Wednesday a group of fire chiefs and Illinois state officials came together to announce a new 10-year smoke detector law.

The new law requires smoke detectors with a 10-year sealed battery to be installed in all homes built before 1988 or that do not already have hardwired smoke detectors.

"The benefit to it is the battery is already sealed in," said Margaret Vaughn, with Illinois Firefighters Association Government Affairs. "A lot of people now, they're pulling the batteries out to use them for other devices The thing with this is even if you were able to take the battery out, which you cannot do, it's not good for anything but this smoke detector."

Last year 91 people died in residential fires in Illinois, and the majority of those deaths happened in homes without working smoke detectors.