Fire Safety Week

It's All About Fire Safety

Nationwide,October 6-12^this known as "Fire Prevention Week." The months of October, November, December and January can be the most common times for fires to occur in the home. It is important that home owners and renters are vigilant in preventing fires in their homes. So, here are a few safety tips to consider through the string of upcoming holidays such as Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Top 5 Fire Alarm Tips——————————————

New Homes require hard-wired, interconnected smoke alarms with a back-up battery on every floor of a home--especially outside of every bedroom and in the kitchen
Older Homes, if you need to add in smoke alarms, the only ones that need to be hard wired are the ones outside of the bedrooms in the home
To prevent alarms brought on by cooking, make sure your alarm is clean and free of cobwebs and dust. If the nuisance alarms continue, never turn off the alarm, just put it on "silent mode"
Change batteries in your fire alarm every 6 months; if you have a carbon monoxide detector, the same rule applies
Finally, Smoke Alarms need to be changed every10 years

——————Fire Safety Tips For You & Your Family

When conducting fire safety as a family, it is important to always have a plan in case of a fire emergency. If a fire were to break out, make sure your family has a meeting spot far enough away from the home to be safe. You should never run back into the house to grab anything; you could end up getting trapped and causing more harm to yourself. The moment you safely exit the house, call 9-1-1 so the closest fire station can deploy someone to put the fire out.

Fires in the home can sometimes be unpredictable; it can occur from distracted cooking, a candle left burning, shoddy electrical work, grease fires, etc. With each fire, there are different types of fire extinguishers based on the cause.

Class A is used on materials like clothing, wood, and paper
Class B is used on combustible liquids like grease and gasoline
Class C is used for electrical appliances (stoves, TVs, computers)
Class D is used with flammable metals (magnesium, titanium, aluminium, zirconium)
Class K is used on cooking oils (olive oil & vegetable oil)

Even though there are five different types of fire extinguishers, any home improvement store, such as Lowes or Home depot, will have a multipurpose extinguisher for classes A, B, and C. And remember "PASS" when using a Fire Extinguisher--Pull the pin, Aim Low, Squeeze the lever slowly and evenly, and Sweep the nozzle from side-to-side

Fires in the Home————————————————

Over the past decade, house fires have decreased in the United States, but their occurrences are still fairly high. Based on research conducted by the U.S. Fire Administration, it shows that house fires have decreased by 6.2%, but the death rate from fires has increased by 9.6%. In 2017, there were 1,319,500 fires, 3,400 deaths, 14,670 injuries, and a whopping $23 billion in damages ($10 billion was caused by Northern California Wildfires).

The possible increase of these statistics can be solved by simply acknowledging a few problems. As mentioned above, it is extremely important to have hard-wired fire alarms outside of every bedroom. Approximately 50% of deaths from fires has occurred due to people sleeping. There are certain gasses present in smoke that will make you fall into a deeper sleep. Also, approximately 50-80% of deaths, in this type of situation, is caused by smoke inhalation.

Distracted cooking is also a major cause of fires in the home, especially with those who own gas stoves. It is fairly common that something, say a towel, will get too close to the open flame of a gas stove and ignite immediately. Also, be careful with candles, especially candle sticks. Candle sticks can easily tip over and can easily ignite curtains if they are close by. Only light candles if you are in the same room, and never leave the house with a candle still lit in your home.

As most Home Owners and Renters know, insurance to protect your belongings is very important, especially with the unpredictability of certain events such as fire, theft, flooding, etc. Home insurance and Renter’s insurance will cover the issues and damages that are brought on by fire. With any type of insurance, you can choose how much coverage you would want to receive in case something were to happen. This coverage can include paying for all or part of the damage caused, it can also include money for replacing all or some of your damaged pieces in the home.

Fire Safety Week

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