Fire & Safety Tips for Your Family & Home

I recently attended a fire safety and prevention presentation given by the Dallas Fire & Rescue. The first speaker at the home fire safety presentation said that there are six everyday things that we all do that is the most common cause of residential fires: Cooking, warming our homes, smoking, using electricity, using kitchen appliances and power tools are responsible for two thirds of residential fires in the United States. Please print out this list and keep it on your refrigerator, test your smoke detectors, and sit down with your family and plan an escape route from your home in case of a fire.

There were several speakers that were present for the fire and safety presentation and although they mainly spoke on families having a home safety checklist and how important it is to keep this checklist handy, other home safety educational subjects were covered. The first speaker went over the Home Fire Safety Checklist and said that if you cannot answer yes to every one of these questions, then you need to fix that problem today.

1. Can your home address be easily seen from the street?
2. Are all of your smoke alarms working properly and placed in the correct areas in your home?
3. Are there two ways out of every bedroom in the house?
4. Have you and your family made a fire escape plan?
5. Do you and your family hold surprise fire drills on a regular basis?
6. If your windows have burglar bars, can they be easily opened without a key from inside the house?
7. Is all of the wiring and electrical equipment in good shape?
8. If you use extension cords, do you make sure they are used properly and not placed under rugs, on top of any nails and they are not overloaded?
9. Are all lighters and matches kept out of reach of children?

10. Do you keep your kitchen stove and vent clean and not let the grease buildup?
11. Is the kitchen vent-a-hood vented to the outside?
12. Are your gas water-heaters vented to outside and do they each have a safety relief valve?
13. Are combustibles put away and stored in a safe area and kept apart from combustible storage?
14. Do you store all flammable liquids in a safe area that is away from combustible storage?
15. Do you replace the filters regularly on your heating and air-conditioning units at least every three months?
16. Do you keep your home and yard free of excessive rubbish and combustible storage?
17. Do you keep a Fire Extinguisher handy? Do you and other family members know how to operate a Fire Extinguisher?

18. Do you use surge protectors and not extension cords?

19. Do you have your Fire Extinguishers checked every year?

Note: Combustibles are materials, which can readily combine with oxygen when ignited by heat or a spark and then explode.

If the door is hot, or you see flames, do not open it. If cool or warm, carefully check to see if you can determine the status of the fire and leave the house if it is safe to do so.

Plan multiple evacuation plans with your family - a primary and back-ups - and designate a family meet-up spot so no one tries to re-enter the home to look for missing family members.

The next speaker talked about what we can all do to make our homes more safe and secure.

Keep a phone in each bedroom, in the kitchen and in the living room.

Keep clothes, blankets, curtains and other combustibles at least three feet from portable heaters

Install sensors in your attic that can detect a sudden and rapid rise in the temperature.

Get detectors (smoke, heat, carbon monoxide) that talk to each other so if one goes off, they all go off.

Get your detectors monitored by your home security company so even if you are unable to call 911, the security company will.

During the Christmas holiday if you want to display lights outdoors, be sure to use extension cords that are UL listed for outdoor use.

Keep clothes, towels and other combustibles away from stove burners.

Never leave anything unattended cooking on the kitchen stove.

Have your chimney inspected and cleaned once a year and especially before you use it for the first time when cold weather arrives.

Once a year you need to clean the dryer tubing on your clothes dryer to prevent the lint from becoming backed up in your dryer because this can cause a fire.

Every time you finish drying a load of clothes in your dryer, clean the lint trap out.

Never leave cigarettes burning in the ashtray unattended.

Never smoke in the bed.

If you hear a smoke detector going off, roll out of your bed and stay on the floor and crawl to the door to check if it is hot. Do not stand up and walk over to the door! If the door is hot, do not open it and exit another way.

After you and your family are outside and safe and everyone is accounted for, then dial 911 for help.

Never go back inside of a burning house or building.

There was also a table set up there and had a lot of different fire safety educational materials and booklets available for those who wanted to take them.

Check your town and states Home Fire Safety website to see if they offer free fire safety presentations.

At the last part of the presentation, the officer that was speaking said that everyone needs to be even more careful about fire safety during the holidays because there are Christmas lights every where in and around homes, Christmas Trees can dry out fast and this is a definite fire hazard just waiting to happen and candles are used more so put all of this together increases the chances of fires in the home.

Dallas Fire-Rescue provides free smoke alarms for City of Dallas residents. Dallas residents can click the link below and then fill out a form to request a smoke detector. They Are Free For Dallas Residents Only.
http://311.dallascityhall.com/web_intake/Controller?op=locform&invSRType=DFDSMOKE&invSRDesc=Smoke%20Detector%20Request%20-%20DFD&locreq=N

Sources:

Dallas Fire & Rescue

http://www.dallasfirerescue.com/