Landlords and homeowners are scrambling to comply with the state's new carbon monoxide detector law, which takes effect Friday, area fire officials said.

The law, known as Nicole's Law, requires owners of buildings with fossil-fuel burning equipment or enclosed parking areas to install carbon monoxide detectors.

Regulations require carbon monoxide detectors on every level of the home and within ten feet of each sleeping area and in habitable portions of basements and attics.

A habitable room is defined as one with chairs or couches which a person could use to rest, fire officials say.

`` It's a good law and it's going to save a lot of lives,'' Norton Fire Chief Richard Gomes said. Fire officials can only enforce the law by inspecting homes when they are sold or transferred.

`` I can't go knocking on doors and ask if you've got carbon monoxide detectors,'' Plainville Fire Chief Edwin Harrop said.

Attleboro Fire Chief Ronald Churchill agreed.

`` If you own your home and are not selling it, it's for your own benefit,'' Churchill said. `` People have to understand they are not going to get arrested or anything like that. Your home is your castle.''

Nicole's Law is named after 7-year-old Nicole Garofalo who died just over a year ago when snow blocked a furnace vent in her Plymouth home.

Carbon monoxide is invisible and odorless. It can come from a malfunctioning fuel-burning appliance, such as a furnace, blocked vent or a car left running in an attached garage.

It is a byproduct of incomplete combustion of wood, coal, charcoal, gasoline, kerosene, natural gas or oil.

The gas kills by robbing the blood of oxygen, suffocating a person from the inside out in as little as 15 minutes.

More than 15,000 Americans get sick from accidental exposure to carbon monoxide every year and another 500 die, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The carbon monoxide detectors may be battery operated with battery monitoring or plug-ins with a battery back-up. They may also be hard-wired with battery backup or wireless. The law also allows combination detectors for smoke and carbon monoxide.

However, fire officials emphasize, the carbon monoxide detector in the unit must have a voice indicator, as opposed to a beeping alarm like a smoke detector.

Fire officials say many of the combination alarms currently available on the market do not comply with the law.

Inspectors in Norton are finding that many people selling their homes have purchased the combination detectors that don't have the required voice indicator, Gomes said.

Because almost all the homes checked in Norton had the wrong type of combination detectors and failed inspection, Gomes said the fire department is going to waive re-inspection fees when the correct system is installed.

Gomes said the state fire marshal's office notified him by e-mail that truckloads of the approved combination detectors are on the way to Massachusetts and should be in stores soon.

The Attleboro fire department has been awarded 100 detectors for needy city residents from First Alert, which manufactures home safety equipment. However, the department has not yet received them.

When they are delivered, Churchill said the fire department and the Attleboro Council on Aging will determine who is eligible to receive them.