Preventing Fire in Your Home

Although many people tend to look at fire prevention as though it’s a chore, the importance of it shouldn’t be undervalued. Fire takes not just homes and property but also lives, and in many cases fires are easily preventable.

Learning to make fire prevention just a part of your daily schedule is very simple. A lot of house fires start in the kitchen, and some are caused by heating not uninstalled properly and electrical faults.

There are more house fires than you might realize, and fire can often devastate homes completely. To give you more of an idea of how common and how serious house fires are, here’s an extract from a page on ACCs website:

Fire safety in the home

Every three hours a home burns in New Zealand. The estimated annual cost of residential fire damage is around $142,000,000. The emotional cost is much, much greater. Fire kills on average 12 people each year and injures hundreds more. Children, the elderly and the disabled are especially vulnerable.

Being fire safe starts with having smoke alarms installed and maintained, but it also means taking care when cooking and when using heaters, matches, candles and electrical appliances.

It’s easy to be fire safe, and it could save your family.

Read the full page here.

So often fires are easily preventable with some care and common sense. Using electrical cords that are frayed or damaged is a fire hazard, and it’s very important if you’re a smoker to only smoke outside and to check that your cigarette butts are completely out before you leave them.

If you have children in the home this can be even more important. Keep any lighters and matches out of reach of children and make sure they’re not using the oven alone or sitting too close to heaters.

It’s easy to identify fire risks in your home. Starting with the kitchen, here’s some of an article by Alexandra Whittaker on Reader’s Digest. The statistics are based on Americans but it’s still relevant to New Zealanders:

10 Little Things That Could Be Making Your Home a Fire Hazard

One in five Americans admits to leaving food cooking unattended on the stove, found an American Red Cross survey. Walking away from food cooking in the kitchen is a serious fire risk. “The leading cause of home fires is cooking and the leading cause of those fires is unattended cooking,” says Carli. If you need to use the stove or oven, be sure to keep an eye on it.

Cranking up the heat too high can be lethal, even if you’re in the kitchen while you cook. Kevin Kelley, senior director of community preparedness programs for the American Red Cross, recommends paying close attention and turning off the burner if you see smoke or grease starting to boil while frying food.

Read the full article here.

But there is also only so much prevention can do. The fact is, accidents happen, and should all else fail it’s vital that your home is ready and that you are ready if there is a fire. Having an escape plan that the whole family knows could save a life.

Prepare for yourself and your family a plan in case of fire. It only takes a few minutes, going over the possible places to escape from (windows and doors) and allocating a place somewhere nearby to gather and make sure everyone is alright.

Working smoke alarms are the last line of defense between you and a house fire. Should a fire break out, being alerted of it before it gets to you can save your life and give you time to call 111. Here are some smoke alarm tips from the New Zealand Fire Service’s website:

Fire Safety Advice

For optimum smoke detection, long life photoelectric smoke alarms should installed in every bedroom, living area and hallway in the house – on every level. However, this is not always practical.

That’s why we suggest, at an absolute minimum, that a long-life photoelectric smoke alarm should be installed in the hallway closest to the bedrooms. This should be supplemented with other alarms as soon as circumstances permit.

Test the batteries regularly

• A significant percentage of homes fitted with smoke alarms remain unprotected due to flat or missing batteries.
• Once a month check the battery by pressing the test button. If you cannot reach the button easily, use a broom handle.
• There is nothing worse than searching for a ‘cheeping’ smoke alarm at 4am in the morning. Avoid this by replacing the battery at least once a year. Pick a time like the beginning or end of daylight savings to do this.
• Consider purchasing long-life photoelectric smoke alarms. This will give 10 years of smoke detection without battery replacements.
• You should install smoke alarms that feature a HUSH button to stop nuisance alarms.
• Keep smoke alarms clean
• Dust and debris can interfere with the alarm’s operation, so vacuum over and around your smoke alarm regularly.

See the full page here.

Other than general care though, it also helps to check your home has no unknown dangers like mold (some types of mold are highly flammable) or electrical faults. Having your home in tip-top shape and having common sense with appliances and home-wares like stoves, heaters and electric blankets are the best ways to prevent fire.

Take a moment to be safety conscious and it will potentially save lives.

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