Vic toddler deaths may have been prevented

The deaths of two Victorian toddlers would have been "entirely preventable" if their house had been fitted with working smoke detectors, a coroner has found.

The sisters, aged one and two, died from smoke inhalation at their rented East Geelong home after a heater ignited a soft toy on September 13, 2018.

There was no smoke alarm at the property.

In her findings released on Tuesday, coroner Rosemary Carlin said the deaths could have been prevented if hardwired smoke alarms, rather than battery-powered ones, were installed in the house.

She said current laws continued to put people at risk, despite a previous Victorian coroner's recommendation in 2014 for hardwired smoke alarms for all rental properties.

At the moment, rental properties built after August 1, 1997, must have hardwired smoke alarms, but older properties, such as the one in this case, only require battery-powered smoke alarms, which are easily deactivated and removed.

While there had been a battery-powered smoke alarm, without a battery, in the children's family home when the rental agreement was signed, the device was removed some time before the fire.

Ms Carlin said the law was vague when it came to landlord and tenant obligations for maintaining smoke alarms.

While it was up to landlords to replace alarms and for tenants to report faulty alarms, it was unclear who should regularly check the devices work.

Ms Carlin recommended making it an offence for landlords to lease properties without such devices.

The same issues were explored at a 2014 inquest into the deaths of three international students in a house fire in Footscray in January 2008.

It prompted the coroner in that case to recommend hardwired smoke alarms for all rental properties, irrespective of when built, and clear guidelines for who must check smoke alarms.

But Ms Carlin said it was "unfortunate" the previous recommendations were not taken on, and the similarity in the cases showed current laws continued to put lives at risk.

Ms Carlin also recommended more resources and education programs for tenants from non-English speaking backgrounds, noting tenants in both cases were recent arrivals to Australia and may not have been aware of their rights and obligations regarding smoke detectors in their homes.