Can large amounts of dust from construction set off smoke alarms?

The smoke alarm was in a public school, so I'm assuming it was a pretty good smoke alarm. Could dust cause it to go off?

Public Comments

1. yes most definitely.....this happened to me when i had work done on my house.....the firefighters came and everything
2. Yes, some smoke alarms go off because of particles in the air get really dense(like when smoke gets near), small particles of saw dust could do it