It seems that when we’re children, we learn all about fire safety and the various means to prevent or navigate through a house fire. This is good. We should learn this. But as we grow, many lessons we learn in childhood still remain but are perhaps less fresh than they might be. For this reason, it’s sometimes essential to consider a list of fire safety advice, particularly if you’re starting to move into your own place. It’s very statistically likely that you’ve made it thus far in your life without ever personally experiencing a fire in your home or place of work. For this reason, over the years we can begin to forget just how fires are a completely possible scenario in any instance. There is always the threat of their occurrence. It doesn’t take much to start a fire. Just a little inattention and the right set of implements.
If you’re moving into a new place, you’re renovating, or you’re simply interested in keeping as safe as you can for your sake, your family's sake, and your neighbors' sake, we’d recommend the following:
Ensure Implements Are Up To Date (Wires, Plug Sockets)
There’s nothing as common as a fire taking place due to an old appliance or wiring job impeding an otherwise comfortable home setup. Frayed wires, water damage to plug sockets, or gnawed-through cables due to a mouse doing its damage can all ensure that the chances of a fire is increased. This means ensuring that your home wiring and other electrical implements are up to date and tested is important. Checking and servicing oil convection heaters, ensuring your oven is maintained and grease-free, and even checking the quality and age of small belongings such as toasters, hair straighteners and the method in which they’re used by your children can help you prevent a fire before it even starts.
Assembly Points
While you might only have an assembly point at work and perhaps remember it from school, it’s worthwhile to have one at your home. Of course, this is likely to be blindingly obvious. You might set it in your garden, or ideally out on the street where there are more options for escape and contact of fire services. Having everyone head there in the event of a fire can potentially help a child save themselves before they are cut off. Ideally, this assembly point should be visible from many windows in the house and can serve as an important place to meet and do your rather small headcount just to be safe. It’s always best to have a final option like this and to rehearse exit routes with your children from each room just in case.
Methods Of Escape
Consider the methods of escape if you’re cut off in your household. Of course, this isn’t a school or a large office, so it’s unlikely that there’ll be a plethora of options if necessary. However, it might be that small methods can be arranged to help someone leave. It might be that your upstairs window opens up onto the porch roof, and from there, someone could safely descend down a floor if they’re careful, and that can help them avoid walking out into the staircase which is ablaze. While the window is usually locked to prevent your child from opening it and walking out normally, having the key in a hidden place (perhaps above the top window arch or taped to the top of the curtain pole,) can help the window open fully if necessary, giving someone the means to escape intact.
This is just one example out of many, and your home setup and layout is going to influence these decisions more than we could. However, in the event of a fire, having more than one escape from a room is essential.
Teaching Your Children
Teaching your children how to report, avoid and stay away from fire is essential. If they’re old enough, teaching them how to use a fire blanket or extinguisher could be considered critical. Teaching them the difference between an electrical fire and a normal fire, and the forms of remedy that should take place there, and how to call the fire department through the emergency services are often lessons they are taught in school, but it’s always best to go over them at home bi-yearly just to be safe.
Also, teaching your children methods to avoid a fire will be just as important. For example, teaching them how to be responsible with hair straighteners, to keep water away from plug sockets, and to prevent overloading plug sockets are all essential lessons for them to understand as they get older.
Testing Detectors
Test your fire and carbon monoxide detectors routinely. The official advice is often once every few months, but we’d say at least once every month is probably the best option. It’s better safe than sorry. Now and then, replace the batteries at random, or don’t be afraid to invest in a complete replacement unit if it’s showing signs of age.
Complete Services
A complete home security service can be extremely important to steward in the modern day, but only those such as Lifeshield which offer you a means to automatically call the fire department in the event of an emergency. Those precious seconds you would have spent making the call can be spent escaping, ensuring everyone is out safely and warning your neighbors about the fire.
With modernized and competent services directly designed to help you out of a difficult fire situation, your chances of escaping unscathed go way up. To us, this sounds more than worth it.
Ventilation
It’s simply a good idea to care for the ventilation of your home in the first instance, but this can often help smoke dispel in the event of a fire. Ensure that windows can be opened or at least placed on lock mode, that there’s good airflow in your home and that your oven or grill is routinely ventilated in the correct manner.
With these tips, your fire safety refresher for the year is complete.
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