Each year, fire claims the lives of 4,000 Americans and injures approximately 25,000. Bedrooms are a common area of fire origin. Nearly 1,000 lives are lost to fires that start in bedrooms. Many of these fires are caused by misuse or poor maintenance of electrical devices, such as overloading extension cords or using portable space heaters too close to combustibles. Many other bedroom fires are caused by children who play with matches and lighters, careless smoking among adults, and arson.
Kids and Fire: A Bad Match
Children are one of the highest risk groups for deaths in residential fires. At home, children usually play with fire - lighters, matches and other ignitables - in bedrooms, in closets, and under beds. These are "secret" places where there are a lot of things that catch fire easily.
Appliances Need Special Attention
Bedrooms are the most common room in the home where electrical fires start. Electrical fires are a special concern during winter months which call for more indoor activities and increases in lighting, heating, and appliance use.
Tuck Yourself In For A Safe Sleep
Finally, having working smoke alarms dramatically increases your chances of surviving a fire. Place at least one smoke alarm on each level of your home and in halls outside bedrooms. And remember to practice a home escape plan frequently with your family.
Electrical fires in our homes claim the lives of 485 Americans each year and injure 2,305 more. Some of these fires are caused by electrical system failures and appliance defects, but many more are caused by the misuse and poor maintenance of electrical appliances, incorrectly installed wiring, and overloaded circuits and extension cords.
THE PROBLEM
During a typical year, home electrical problems account for 67,800 fires, 485 deaths, and $868 million in property losses. Home electrical wiring causes twice as many fires as electrical appliances.
THE FACTS
December is the most dangerous month for electrical fires. Fire deaths are highest in winter months which call for more indoor activities and increase in lighting, heating, and appliance use. Most electrical wiring fires start in the bedroom.
THE CAUSE
Electrical Wiring
Home Appliances
SAFETY PRECAUTIONS
Finally, having a working smoke alarm dramatically increases your chances of surviving a fire. And remember to practice a home escape plan frequently with your family.
Smoke alarms can only warn of danger. You must then take action to escape. Unless you act quickly and effectively, the extra warning time provided by alarms could be wasted. More than 4,000 Americans die each year in fires, and approximately 25,000 are injured. Deaths resulting from failed emergency escapes are particularly avoidable. The best way to assure that your family will do the correct things in an emergency is to have an escape plan and practice it. The important factors in a home fire evacuation plan are:
Immediately leave the home
When a fire occurs, do not waste any time
saving property. Take the safest exit route, but if you must escape through
smoke, remember to crawl low, under the smoke and keep your mouth covered. The
smoke contains toxic gases which can disorient you or, at worst, overcome you.
Call the fire department (Use
911 if available) from a neighbor's home. Take the safest exit route, but if you
must escape through smoke remember to crawl low under the smoke.
Know two ways out of each room
If the primary way out is blocked by fire or smoke, you will need a
second way out. This might be a window onto an adjacent roof or by using an
escape ladder (tested and approved by a recognized testing laboratory). Practice
escaping by both the primary and secondary routes to be sure that windows are
not stuck and screens can be taken out quickly. Windows and doors with security
bars need quick release devices to allow them to be opened quickly in an
emergency. Practice escaping in the dark.
Never Open Doors That Are Hot To The Touch
When you come to a closed door, use the back of
your hand to feel the top of the door, the doorknob, and the crack between the
door and door frame to make sure that fire is not on the other side. If it feels
hot, use your secondary escape route. Even if the door feels cool, open it
carefully. Brace your shoulder against the door and open it slowly. If heat and
smoke come in, slam the door and make sure it is securely closed, then use your
alternate escape route.
Have an arranged meeting place
If you all meet under a specific tree or at the end of the driveway
or front sidewalk, you will know that everyone has gotten out safely and no one
will be hurt looking for someone who is already safe. Designate one person to go
to a neighbor's home to phone the fire department.
Once out, STAY OUT!
Never go back into a burning building for any reason. If someone is
missing, tell the fire fighters. They are equipped to perform rescues safely.
Fireplace & Wood Burning Stove Safety
More than one-third of Americans use fireplaces, wood stoves and other fuel-fired appliances as primary heat sources in their homes. Unfortunately, many people are unaware of the fire risks when heating with wood and solid fuels.
Heating fires account for 36% of residential home fires in rural areas every year. Often these fires are due to creosote buildup in chimneys and stovepipes. All home heating systems require regular maintenance to function safely and efficiently.
The United States Fire Administration (USFA) encourages you to practice the following fire safety steps to keep those home fires safely burning. Remember, fire safety is your personal responsibility ...Fire Stops With You!
Keep Fireplaces and Wood Stoves Clean
Safely Burn Fuels
Protect the Outside of Your Home
Protect the Inside of Your Home
The following consumer advisory and safety guidelines are
provided to help consumers avoid potential problems with refueling, storage and
disposal of gasoline. This information was obtained from the American Petroleum
Institute (API) web site. Please visit www.api.org for additional consumer
guidelines on gasoline safety.
Refueling Advisory
The API is aware of a few unusual fire incidents involving self-service
customers who were refueling their vehicles in cool or cold, dry weather
conditions. These incidents may be related to static electricity buildup and
discharge. One of many possible causes of static electricity build-up is
reentering your vehicle during refueling, particularly in cool or cold and dry
climate conditions. This can cause a buildup of static electricity similar to
shuffling your feet on carpet when the air in your home is dry. If you return
from your vehicle interior to remove the filling nozzle without discharging the
static buildup, in rare circumstances, a brief flash fire could occur at the
filling point if the static discharges and resulting spark ignites gasoline
vapors around the fill spout.
Safety guidelines on vehicle refueling:
Safety guidelines on filling containers:
Fact Sheet
Storage: Store gasoline in an approved container or tank. Gasoline is a flammable liquid and should be stored at room temperature, away from potential heat sources such as the sun, hot water heater, space heater or a furnace, and away for ignition sources. Gasoline vapors are heavier than air and can travel along the floor to ignition source.
Gasoline disposal: Never dispose of gasoline by pouring it onto the ground or into a sewer, street drain, stream or other waterbody, or putting it into the trash. These actions are environmentally harmful and may result in a fire, explosion, or soil, surface or groundwater contamination. Fines and criminal penalties may be associated with improper disposal. Excess gasoline in good condition can be added to the fuel tank of a gasoline-powered car or truck. See manufacturer’s recommendations. (Don’t dispose of gasoline/oil mixtures for two-stroke cycle engines this way.) However, it is not easy to dispose of gasoline that has deteriorated.
Wood Burning Stove
Candles
There were 9,930 reported candle fires in 1996 and 11,600 in 1997, the highest total in the 18 years for which statistics are available.
How do you use candles and be safe?
Kitchen Fire Safety
Carbon Monoxide - The Silent Killer
Carbon monoxide is a gas that cannot be seen, tasted or smelled, and ,therefore, it is capable of killing you before you even know it is there. Household appliances fueled by gas, oil, kerosene or wood may also produce CO if the appliances are not installed, maintained or vented properly. These appliances include space heaters, gas dryers, and even barbecue grills. Improperly operating appliances can produce fatal CO concentrations in your home. Likewise, using charcoal indoors or running a car in a garage can cause CO poisoning. It is recommended you install at least one CO detector in your home near the sleeping area. A second detector installed near the home's heat source provides even more protection. Symptoms of CO poisoning are similar to the flu, but without the fever. They include:Remember, if you have any of these symptoms and if you feel better when you go outside your home and the symptoms reappear once you are back inside, you may have CO poisoning.
One of the most important fire safety devices for the home is the smoke alarm.
After becoming generally available in the early 1970's home smoke alarm sales
grew rapidly and the price fell, so that by 1991, 88% of US homes had at least
one, and alarms could be purchased for under $10.
Several studies have concluded that when working smoke alarms are present, the chance of dying from the fire is cut in half. The smoke alarms currently in place have saved thousands of lives, but several problems exist. First, the 12% of homes without alarms have more than half of the fires; second, it is estimated that a third of the smoke alarms in place are not working, often due to failure to replace a worn out battery; and third, many homes do not have as many smoke alarms as are needed to protect the occupants properly. In this section, we will examine how to protect your family with smoke alarms.
How Many Alarms are Needed?
The primary job of our smoke alarm is to protect you from fires while you are asleep. Thus, your alarms should be located between any sleeping persons and the rest of the house ' outside bedrooms or sleeping areas. But tests conducted in the 1970's clearly showed that this might not be enough. In multi-story homes, fires on a floor level without a smoke alarm can grow to dangerous conditions before sufficient smoke can rise in a stairway to set off an alarm on the upper floor. Based on this observation, most codes require that additional smoke alarms be located on each floor level of the home. A closed door provides protection from smoke on the other side, but will also prevent smoke from reaching a smoke alarm. This is particularly a problem in bedrooms. If you sleep with your bedroom door closed, you should add a smoke alarm in the bedroom; particularly if you smoke in the bedroom or there is a TV, air conditioner, or other major appliances in the bedroom that might start a fire. If you sleep with the bedroom door open, the alarm in the hall outside will detect a fire in the bedroom or elsewhere.
There are a few places where a smoke alarm should not be placed. These include kitchens and garages (cooking fumes and car exhaust are likely to set them off) and unheated attics and crawl spaces (where it can get too cold or hot for the electronics to work properly). Fires beginning in these areas are generally detected by the other smoke alarms in enough time to escape safely. If an alarm is desired in these spaces, heat detectors are available. But remember that the smoke alarms are the primary safety devices in any home protection scheme.
What Kind of Smoke Alarm Should You Get?
There are two types of home smoke alarms available; the ion type and the photoelectric type. The ion type reacts faster to open flaming fires and is usually the least expensive. The photoelectric type reacts faster to smoldering fires and is less likely to react to cooking. Both types provide good protection and can be used without worry. If you need more than one alarm, you might get one of each. There are also multiple ways to power smoke alarms. Most operate on a battery (usually 9 volt), which should be replaced at least once a year. When the battery needs changing, the smoke alarm will begin to "chirp" every 20 seconds or so, this will persist for a month. This is most likely to start in the middle of the night (when the temperature in the house drops) causing you to get up and remove the battery so you can sleep. To prevent this nuisance you should pick a special day and give your alarms new batteries once a year. Some fire safety organizations promote "change your clocks, change your batteries" when the change is made back from daylight savings time each fall. Always make sure that you use the right battery ' the required battery type is marked on the alarm near where the battery goes. Smoke alarms installed in a house may be operated from the household electrical power and not need battery replacement. This type of alarm has a "power on" light to tell you that the alarm has power. Smoke alarms are available which run on house power but also have a battery in case the main power fails. Both types of alarms need to be tested monthly and batteries should be replaced yearly just as with the battery-only operated type.
How Should it be Installed?
Smoke alarms are normally installed on the ceiling or high on the wall, with the top of the alarm not closer than 4 inches nor further than 12 inches from the ceiling. Alarms should be no closer than 3 feet from supply registers of forced air heating systems (that might blow on the alarm preventing it from seeing smoke) and no closer than 3 feet from the door to a kitchen or a bathroom containing a shower (steam can set the alarm off when the door is opened). If an alarm is mounted on an exterior wall or a ceiling below an unheated attic that is poorly insulated (the surface gets noticeably cold in the winter and warm in the summer), the temperature difference can prevent smoke from getting to the alarm. Placing the alarm on an inside wall avoids the problem. In desert climates where evaporative coolers are being used, mount smoke alarms on walls 12 inches below the ceiling. These coolers add moisture that can cause the smoke to drop. Older adults may have difficulty reaching alarms on the ceiling to change batteries. If hard-wired alarms are impractical, wall mounting 12 inches down should be considered.
Will You be Able to Hear Your Alarms?
The ultimate test for smoke alarms is their ability to wake you when you are asleep. This generally means that the nearest alarm to the bedroom can be no further away than in the next room with the intervening door open. Hard-wired alarms can be connected together (with a wire) so when one alarm activates, all interconnected alarms go off. Many alarms in new homes have this feature. It means any alarm in the home can awaken you in your bedroom if the nearest alarm is loud enough to do so. For homes with battery-powered alarms, there are models that contain a radio transmitter that will activate a receiver that can be placed in the bedroom. An advantage of this type is that, when you go on vacation, you can give the receiver to a neighbor who could call the fire department if a fire starts. Of course, these are a lot more expensive than the simple alarms. All battery-powered and most hard-wired smoke alarms use a high-pitched electronic horn which is difficult for some people to hear. Test alarms before installation to make sure that all members of the household can hear them clearly. People with hearing impairments can get smoke alarms with bright, flashing lights or vibrating signals. To awaken you, the light needs to be over the head of the bed and should be rated at least 110 candles. Such bright lights must be powered from house power, so if it is battery operated, it is probably not bright enough to use in the bedroom.
Testing and Maintenance
Smoke alarms should be tested at least once a month. All smoke alarms have a test button that you push to check out the entire alarm, including its sensitivity (how much smoke it takes to set it off). If the testing mechanism does not work properly, the alarm should be replaced immediately. Never use open flame devices to test an alarm. Older adults and the physically impaired may have problems reaching their alarms to test them. There is one brand of smoke alarm on which the test feature can be activated by shining a flashlight on it. Another brand has an automatic test that activates at the same time and day, once a week. These models can be used where proper testing might not otherwise be done. Smoke alarms need no maintenance other than changing batteries (in those that have batteries) and an occasional vacuuming of dust or cobwebs. Every smoke alarm comes with a homeowner booklet, which describes how to use and take care of that particular alarm. You should read that booklet and keep it in a safe place for future reference.
What if Your Alarm "ACTS UP"?
Smoke alarms are highly reliable but can sometimes be fooled by cooking or steam. If it sounds when there is not fire, it may need to be moved a few feet to a new position where it is not in the way of cooking vapors or steam. It may also have insects in it, so you should take it down and vacuum it out. If it continues to act up, simply replace it with a new alarm. They are inexpensive and can be purchased at any local hardware store.
How Long Should Your Smoke Alarm Last?
Smoke alarms have a useful life of about ten years. At that age they should be replaced, even if they seem to be working. This will assure that the alarm will be working when you need it. Even though prices of today's smoke alarms are less expensive than you might have paid some years ago, today's alarms are more reliable. Thus, it is usually not worth keeping an old alarm rather than buying a replacement.
What Fire Extinguisher is Right for Me?
What Fire Extinguisher Is Right For Me?
There are four general classifications of fires and extinguishing agents:
Class A
Class A fires are those that involve ordinary combustible materials such as
wood, paper, cloth, rubber and plastics. The quenching and cooling effects of
water or of solutions containing large amounts of water are the most effective
means of extinguishing this type of fire.
Class B
Class B fires are those that occur in the vapor-air mixture over the surface of
flammable liquids such as gasoline, oil, grease, paints and thinners. The
limiting of air (oxygen) or the combustion inhibiting effect is the most
effective measure against incipient fires of this class. Water must not be used
on Class B fires because it tends to spread the fire.
Class C
Class C fires are those that occur in or near energized electrical equipment
where non-conducting extinguishing agents must be used. Water must never be used
on Class C fires.
Class D
Class D fires are those that involve combustible metals such as magnesium,
titanium, zirconium and sodium. Water must never be used on class D fires. A
Class D powdered extinguishing agent should be used.
The most common type of extinguisher is the ABC type. This unit will cover most
common type of fires.
Remember, once you have your extinguisher you need to know how to use it. Please
visit our page on using extinguishers by clicking here.
If you do not know what type of extinguisher to get, or have any other questions
please come to our station located at 200 South Rural St or call us at
815-645-8211 ext 101 and we will be happy to assist you.
Using Your Fire Extinguisher
Before using your fire extinguisher, be sure to read the instructions before
it's too late. Although there are many different types of fire extinguishers,
all of them operate in a similar manner.
Use this acronym as a quick reference: P A S S
Pull the Pin at the top of the extinguisher. The pin releases a locking
mechanism and will allow you to discharge the extinguisher.
Aim at the base of the fire, not the flames. This is important - in order
to put out the fire, you must extinguish the fuel.
Squeeze the lever slowly. This will release the extinguishing agent in
the extinguisher. If the handle is released, the discharge will stop.
Sweep from side to side. Using a sweeping motion, move the fire
extinguisher back and forth until the fire is completely out. Operate the
extinguisher from a safe distance, several feet away, and then move towards the
fire once it starts to diminish. Be sure to read the instructions on your fire
extinguisher - different fire extinguishers recommend operating them from
different distances. Remember: Aim at the base of the fire, not at the
flames!!!!
A typical fire extinguisher contains 10 seconds of extinguishing power. This
could be less if it has already been partially discharged. Always read the
instructions that come with the fire extinguisher before hand and become
familiarized with its parts.
Once the fire is out, don't walk away! Watch the area for a few minutes in case
it re-ignites. Recharge the extinguisher immediately after use.
