|
|
|
Last Updated: Nov 14, 2008 - 12:49:26 PM |
As you are reading this, Fire Prevention Week is being recognized across our country. The 2008 theme is “Preventing Home Fires.” Every year there are approximately 5,500 people who lose their lives in residential fires. The majority of these fires occur at night, when most people are sleeping. Cooking-related fires still top the list as the number-one cause of residential fires. Other causes of fires in residential occupancies include improperly discarded smoking materials, children playing with lighters and matches, space heaters too close to combustibles, chimney fires in faulty chimneys that extend into walls, electrical shorts and problems with electrical appliances, fires caused by candles, lightning strikes, and the last one that I will list are arson fires.
In order to prevent fires, we first must know what is causing them. We then must possess the desire to do what it takes to prevent them. My experience has always been that most people do not think about fires unless they have had one in their own home, or had a fire occur in their neighborhood. They then become our greatest ambassadors, wanting to educate the world. Why does it have to get to this point before most of you will listen? Articles like this would not need to be written over and over if the same fires were not occurring over and over, but they are. Wipe out most of the causes listed above, and the number of residential fires would drop drastically.
Most people believe that a fire will never occur in their home, so it is important for safety measures to be taken when homes are being built. Installation of smoke alarms throughout the home has become mandatory. These smoke alarms are now designed to all go off when one alarm is activated. Tests have shown that a single smoke alarm does not wake people up like you would expect it to. As I have told you before, I have never responded to a home in the middle of the night where anyone is still asleep with all of the smoke alarms going off. If your home is older and only has one or two detectors, then it is important to see if those smoke alarms will wake your family in the middle of the night. You might not be the most popular person at the moment, but at least you will know.
Another safety measure that is up for consideration is mandatory residential sprinkler systems in new construction of single-family dwellings. If passed, this one measure, in addition to working smoke alarms, will increase the chances of surviving a residential fire eighty-plus percent.
If you take this issue seriously, and believe that a fire can happen in any home, then you must be prepared. Preventing fires is a must. Getting everyone out once the fire occurs is the second must. What way will you go when fire has blocked your primary means of egress? If you had to escape from a window, are you prepared? Who is designated to get the baby, or the pet? These are all things that must be considered when developing a home escape plan.
I have shared with you that some departments in the country take a house that has burnt in a community, make it as safe as possible for the public to enter, and give people tours, showing what happens to your stuff when a fire occurs. The message is a tough one, but one that needs to be heard and heeded. If you went to bed tonight knowing that a fire was going to occur, you probably would not sleep at all. However, if you knew that your family was prepared, you would rest easier.
© Copyright by Village Publishing
Top of Page Comment
on This Article
The
Village News office is located at 4607 West Hundred Road Chester
Mailing address is PO Box 2397 Chester, VA 23831
Phone: 751-0421 Fax: 751-9155
Office hours are 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday - Friday call ahead for
other hours.
Statement
of Journalistic Ethics
|
|
|
Village News:
Read right 'round the world.
|
|
