A new federal class-action lawsuit alleges two of the nation’s largest smoke-detector manufacturers misled consumers for decades about the ability of their alarms to warn people in time during common household fires, according to the complaint filed Monday in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington.

The suit, brought by plaintiffs Michael Stapelman of Bellevue and Tammie Hays of Centralia, claims Kidde and First Alert marketed ionization-only smoke alarms as fully protective fire-safety devices despite knowing the technology routinely fails to give residents enough time to escape smoldering fires — the type of fire most likely to occur overnight when people are sleeping.

According to the filing, ionization alarms react more quickly to flaming fires but often respond to

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