Fire and Emergency is reminding people to check their smoke alarms this weekend, when they change their clocks for daylight savings.

Risk Management Officer, Bruce Irvine said many of the older model smoke alarms have to have their batteries replaced regularly.

Some of which are known to malfunction in the coldest nights during winter.

"That maintenance may have lapsed, we don't know" he said.

Irvine said, with daylight savings this weekend it's important to check them as they have come across several that have malfunctioned in recent months.

"Unfortunately recently I've had an event where there was potentially a failure of the alarms that a person didn't manage to get out of their house."