Fire Prevention Guide: Fire Kills

• When cooking, take care if you’re wearing loose clothing as it can easily catch fire.
• Keep electrical leads, tea towels and cloths away from the cooker and hob.
• Never leave children alone in the kitchen.
• Keep matches, lighters and saucepan handles where children can’t reach them, and fit a safety catch on the oven door.
• Keep the oven, hob, toaster and grill clean– a build-up of fat, crumbs or grease can easily catch fire.
• Don’t use matches or lighters to light gas cookers – spark devices, which you can buy from hardware stores, are safer.
• Don’t leave pans on the hob when you’re not around. Take them off the heat if you have to leave the kitchen.
• Angle saucepan handles so they don’t stick out from the hob, or over a naked flame.

• Your garage is free from any combustible materials or easily flammable junk. Gasoline should be stored in approved safety containers and away from any heat source, especially where there is an open flame; the same goes for oily rags.
• The door that leads from the garage to the main house should be sturdy and incorporate both a fire-resisting threshold and adequate weather stripping that can prevent carbon monoxide fumes from entering the house.
• Ensure all fire safety devices are properly installed and working optimally in your garage.

• The burner access panels (typically located on the front of the boilers) are fully closed in order to prevent potential flame roll-out.
• The breaker wires are perfectly tight, as opposed to loose and the circuit breaker panel functions in optimum conditions.
• If your home is older, it is likely that arc fault circuit interrupters ensure protection against potential electrical wiring errors; be sure to secure the specialized services of an electrician to have these properly fixed.
• The areas around various heat-generating equipment (i.e. water heater, furnace, stove etc) are clear of any hazardous and easily flammable materials, substances ( liquids, aerosols) and debris/trash. Place the oily rags in air-tight containers and as far as possible from open flame.
• There should be no frayed wire on light bulbs and the wire insulators must show no visible signs of decay or erosion.
• Avoid smoking next to open flame in the water heater and be sure to have at least three fire safety devices in the basement: a fire alarm, a carbon monoxide alarm and a sprinkler system.

• Properly clean the lint trap ( located near/in the door of the dryer) between each load of laundry. There should be no accumulated lint inside the dryer, the exhaust duct or the area behind the dryer.
• Check regularly the ducting at the back of the dryer for any signs of lint collected there and call a professional to replace flexible plastic or foil ducting material with rigid metal dryer duct.
• Check the end point of the dryer vent outside your home and ensure the dryer vent is neither clogged with lint and it properly opens to let the air out when your dryer is running.
• Do not store combustible material near the dryer and if the furnace is located near the laundry room, avoid dropping lint or hanging clothing near it.

• Take extra care when you’re tired, taking prescription drugs or have been drinking alcohol. It’s very easy to fall asleep without realising that your cigarette is still burning.
• If you need to lie down, don’t light up. You could easily doze off and set your bed or sofa on fire.
• Don’t leave lit cigarettes, cigars or pipes unattended – they can easily overbalance as they burn down, land on a carpet
  or newspaper and start a fire. When you put it out, make sure it really is out.
• Every year children die from starting fires with cigarettes, matches and lighters which they shouldn’t have. Keep these where children can’t reach them.
• Where possible, buy child-resistant lighters and matchboxes.
• Use a proper, heavy ashtray which can’t tip over easily and is made of a material that won’t burn.

• Keep candles where children and pets can’t reach them, away from draughts, and away from anything that can easily catch fire (for example, furniture, curtains or newspapers).
• Make sure the candle is standing up straight and is fixed firmly in a proper holder so that it can’t fall over. Scented candles turn to liquid in order to release their fragrance, so always burn them in a suitable glass or metal container that can withstand the heat of the liquidand that the liquid cannot leak from.
• Always place candles on a heat-resistant surface. Night lights and tea lights can melt plastic surfaces, such as the top of a TV and the side of a bath tub.
• Don’t lean across a candle – you could set your hair or clothes on fire.

• Just like people, our beloved four legged friends are susceptible to serious injuries and even death from fires and smoke inhalation. Keeping your home fireproofed and ensuring your pets are properly contained in certain areas of your house, will help prevent home fires; in addition, in the event of a fire, you will be able to save your pet’s life.
• Prevent your pet from starting a fire; pets are usually drawn to the flickering candles just like moths are drawn to a flame. Apart from the risk of getting burned, your pets may start a home fire if they happen to accidentally knock over a candle. Hence, you should never leave any lit candles unattended, more so, if the candles are within your pet’s reach. You should also be very careful with space heaters and halogen lamps which can easily start a home fire if they get knocked over by your pet’s wagging tail.
• Be mindful of any dangling electrical cords which can electrocute or strangle your pet if chewed upon. Any damaged or chewed electrical cords should be immediately replaced since they pose a great fire hazard.
• Never leave any open flames unattended; Pets are naturally curious and tend to investigate cooking appliances, lanterns, stoves and even the fires in the fireplace. It’s crucial to make sure that your pet isn’t left unattended near open flames. Also ensure all fires are fully extinguished before leaving the house.
• Identify all potential risks and pet proof your house. Some potential risks include; loose wires, dangling electrical cords, stove knobs, and other such potential fire hazards. Your pet can accidentally turn on a stove knob which can in turn lead to a house fire. Make sure you protect all the stove knobs from getting activated while you’re away.

• Keep your pets near entrances; Before you leave your pet(s) at home alone, it’s recommended you keep them somewhere near the entrance where it’s easy for firefighters to find them. You should also write down the number of pets you have inside your home, and then put up the sticker for firefighters.
• When leaving home, make sure you leave young pets like, kittens and puppies in a comfortable crate so as to avoid potential risks like, chewing wires and other potential hazards, while you’re away.
• Practice family escape routes in case of a fire; All families should repeatedly practice exactly how they’d escape from a house in case of a fire outbreak, under different situations. When running drills, make sure you designate someone who will be responsible for evacuating the pet(s) from the house. You can also train your dog to understand the meaning of a smoke alarm going off by continually doing drills of the smoke alarm going off, and then involving your dog in your family escape plan.
• Consider installing monitored smoke detectors that are connected to the monitoring center. A monitoring system will be able to alert both you, and the nearest fire station, in case of a fire outbreak. These monitoring systems offer an added level of protection.

• Pets normally react to fire by getting traumatized or scared. A pet can start urinating and defecating on the floor or scratching and biting people. If this happens, you need to be comforting to your pets by providing them with tender loving care while helping them understand that all is well again.
• Never bring a pet inside a home til all the smoke has cleared, and the fire damage has been fully repaired.

• If you have kids, you should talk to them about fire prevention and provide them with fire safety tips.
• Teach your kids not to play with matches, fireworks, or lighters, and keep those types of items away from their reach, to prevent them from playing with them.
• Provide them with some fire safety advice telling them what to do if there is a fire.
• If you have older kids, you should teach them not to use candles in their bedrooms unless they are supervised by an adult.
• You should also tell them not to leave a candle burning if they aren’t in the room.
• You should show your children how to respond to a fire alarm, and teach them to get low and out of the house if there is a fire.
• You should show your children how to feel doors and doorknobs carefully to tell if it is too hot, so they know not to open the door and find another exit.
• If you have toddlers and young children in the house, you should assign an older person to get them out of the house safely.
• You should also have a secondary person assigned to do the same thing in case the primary person you picked is not around during the fire or is overcome by the smoke.

• Make sure you keep space heaters at least three feet away from anything that can burn, and never leave little kids alone when a heater is turned on.

• Seniors that have trouble walking tend to pile things close to their beds, let them know that it is a fire hazard and ask them to refrain from doing so.
• If there are oxygen tanks in the home, nobody should be allowed to smoke in it.
• Space heaters should not be used near oxygen tanks.

• If you have a deaf person in your care, you should install fire alarms that have strobe lights, that way they can tell if there is a fire in the building.
• You should also communicate the same fire safety rules that you would give someone without disabilities.
• In the case of a deaf person, you can communicate using sign language, and for a blind person, you can communicate by giving them a brochure on fire safety written in braille.
• You should also make sure they have a service animal that will be able to guide them out of the building.
• If you have a disabled person that uses a wheel chair, you can install handicap ramps around the house for them to move around easily and get out of the house quickly if there is a fire.
• You should show them the fire escape plan so they will know what route to take, and help them practice what to do in case of a fire, so they don’t panic if one does happen.
• If possible, you should have someone that can carry them out of the burning building.

• Pregnant women have limited mobility in the later stages of their pregnancies, but they can still move around.
• As it is dangerous for a pregnant woman to inhale smoke, you have to try and evacuate them from the home as quickly as possible.
• If you have a pregnant woman in your home, you should assign someone that can help her get out of the house quickly.
• Pregnant women have a bag packed for when they go into labor, make sure that you grab the bag if there is a fire because they usually contain things that she needs, like her medication.
• Try to dampen a towel and place it over her mouth so she can breathe if there is a lot of smoke in the home.

If there is heavy smoke in the room, you should crawl towards the closest exit in your escape plan because smoke and gasses collect towards the roof and ceiling.

Leave the house very quickly when you hear the smoke alarm going off, because fire spreads very quickly, and you may only have a few minutes to escape.

If you see smoke blocking an exit, use another exit.

Smoke is toxic, but if you have no other option but to go through it, stay as low as possible.

Before opening a door during a fire, quickly touch the doorknob and the door. If either one of them is hot, keep the door closed and find another exit.

• You need to get in touch with a relief service, like The Red Cross, which can help you with your housing, food, or medical needs.
• If your home was insured, you need to let your insurance company know about the situation so you can start rebuilding. If you didn’t insure your home, you should try to find organizations that can provide you with some assistance.
• Ask your fire department if you can enter your home, and you should watch out for structural damages due to the fire if you enter the house.
• Make an inventory of your damaged property.
• Try to find your important documents and records.
• If you aren’t going to be in your home, let the police department know it is unoccupied to keep people out of it.
• Contact the IRS to learn about the benefits the government has for people that are suffering losses because of fires.