Mobile, AL Fire Regulations: Smoke Detectors (2026)

Section 109 of the 2021 International Fire Code, as adopted and amended by Mobile City Code § 22-2, covers maintenance recordkeeping for every fire protection and life-safety system in the city. The amended Section 109.3 requires a record of periodic inspections, tests, servicing and other operations and maintenance to be kept on the premises, or another approved location, for not less than three years, and made available to the fire code official on request; a copy has to be filed through the Mobile Eyes Contractor Portal.

Section 109.3 singles out Residential Groups R-1 and R-2, meaning apartments, hotels and motels, both transient and non-transient. Owners of those occupancies must submit a quarterly report through the Mobile Eyes Contractor Portal covering three things: smoke alarm operational condition, clothes dryer vent cleaning, and fire extinguisher inspections. Where the property has a sprinkler system, the annual fire hydrant test performed by a licensed fire sprinkler contractor has to be folded into that same report. The fire code official sets the format for the recordkeeping and can require specific records to be filed directly.

This reporting duty layers on top of, not instead of, the underlying smoke alarm installation standards carried over from the Property Maintenance Code. Enforcement runs through Mobile's Community Risk Reduction Division of the Fire and Rescue Department, and disputes over an official's finding go to the Board of Appeals created under Section 111 of the amended Fire Code, the same Construction Board of Appeals used across the city's adopted construction codes.