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Fires unfortunately occur in homes all the time.
It’s important that we know what to do if a fire breaks out in our home, but it’s also essential to know how to prevent a fire from happening in the first place.
Listed below are some tips to follow to ensure the safety of you, your family, and your home.
Fire Safety Tips
Talk to your family about an escape plan if a fire were to ever break out in your home. Know where you need to escape through and where you’d meet everyone once you’re out.
Ensure that all of your smoke alarms work. In over 60% of house fire deaths, the families did not have working smoke alarms.
Prepare For and Preventing a House Fire.
Keep flammables away from anything that gets hot or could cause a spark.
Never smoke in your home.
Ensure that your children know the dangers of a fire. Keep matches and lighters out of the reach of your children.
Do not leave candles unattended.
Make sure that you have smoke alarms on all levels of your home - better yet in every room.
Teach your children about what a smoke alarm does and what it sounds like. Make sure that they know what to do when or if it were to ever go off.
Test your smoke alarms once a month. If they don’t work, replace the batteries.
Practice escaping from your home at least twice a year. Practice waking up to smoke alarms and practice your low crawl to help prevent smoke inhalation.
Make sure that everyone knows how to dial 911 and what to tell them (Address, name, and what the emergency is.)
Ensure that everyone knows what to do if they were to ever catch on fire. (Stop, drop, and roll)
Have two ways out. If door handles are warm, do not open the door. This means that there is a fire directly on the other side. Try your other escape route.
If smoke, heat, or flames prevent you from escaping, place a wet towel underneath your door. This will prevent the fire from spreading into your room. Dial 911 and stay by a window. Signal for help from there too.
When escaping from your home, ensure that you’re being as quick as possible. Most times, you only have about two minutes to escape. Don’t stop for anything, items or even pets.
Take Precautions When Cooking
This is really important if you have a gas cooker or hobs in your kitchen. I recently read a story about a young lady in Asia. There were ants crawling around on her counter-top as she started to cook and she sprayed them with an insect repellent.
Right next to her open flame cooking stove. There was a huge explosion, and the poor lady was taken to hospital with severe burns to her face, arms and chest.
Don’t leave the food you’re cooking on a stove unattended. If you do have to leave the kitchen, do not leave the food cooking; turn off the stove until you come back and able to finish cooking.
Keep all flammables away from the stove. This includes oven mitts, hand towels, clothing, and plastic. It's especially important to keep any chemicals away from sources of heat or open flame.
Keep your pets out of the kitchen and especially off of counters when you're preparing or cooking food. This will help prevent anything from falling onto the burners and catching fire.
Finally; Fires are very scary and they can cause a very large amount of damage.
Remember to stay calm and call for help.
Know how to stay safe if a fire ever happens within your home.
It’s important that you know all of the safety tips so that you have the best chance of survival.
Ensure your children also know to follow these safety tips, and never let young children cook unsupervised.
Learn how to identify the risks and prevent potential injury that you and your family face every day by taking the new COSHH Risk Assessor Certification™.
