More Fire Safety Tips

As burns can be so devastating to a young person,particularly if they scar your children for life I decided to extend my research to do with Fire safety around the home and found even more obscure threats to my family's safety.

You should consider how you heat your home and what kind of risk this heating system poses. For example, if your home is heated with a completely self-contained, enclosed central heating system with no exposed source of direct heat, you have far less to be concerned about than you would if you were using a wood burning stove in the centre of the room to power the heating system.

Another very sensible step to take is to use a thermostat to control the temperature of the water that comes out of the faucets (taps) in the bathroom and kitchen. If the water cannot get hotter than (say) 110°F or 120°F (or ‘medium' heat if this is how your thermostat is calibrated), the water is never going to get hot enough to scald anyone.

On a more general level, you should consider installing appropriate fire prevention measures whilst also making sure that you have the necessary fire fighting ‘tools' available in the home as well.
For an example, every room in your home should have smoke detectors fitted, and if possible, installing a sprinkler system that will automatically douse a fire within moments of it starting would also be an extremely good idea.

Next, make sure that you have fire extinguishers (and possibly fire blankets) to hand. You should also ensure that you have read and fully understand the instructions for how to use the extinguishers well in advance of needing them too. In the panic that would naturally ensue in the event of a fire is no time to be learning how to use the extinguisher.

Another extremely useful step is to give a good deal of thought and consideration to how you would exit your property in the case of a fire developing. In other words, you need a personal fire escape plan that is tailored to the peculiarities and characteristics of your home that will enable you to get out in the shortest possible time.

This plan should also take into account as many possible variables or eventualities as you can think of as well. For example, it is all very well knowing that you can get out the door if a fire breaks out during the day, but what happens if you live in a two storey house in which you and your family sleep on the upper level? How are you going to get out if a fire breaks out downstairs in the middle of the night? These are all important points to consider.

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Fire Safety Around The Home

One of the problems that we all have with home safety is that the everyday familiarity of our surroundings tends to blind us to potential danger spots. At the same time however, because danger could potentially lurk in every nook and cranny of the average home, trying to expunge the risk of getting burned completely is almost impossible.
On the other hand, there are many preventative measures that you can take around the house which will at least minimize the more obvious points of risk.
 
The first thing to realize is that in most homes, the greatest risk level as far as being burned is concerned lurks in the kitchen.
As a part of the normal routine of every average household, there will be pans boiling away on the stove, food in a hot oven, a kettle coming to the boil in the background and 101 other regular kitchen activities taking place that represent a potential burns danger spot.
At the same time, kitchens at mealtimes – which is inevitably the most dangerous time – are extremely busy places, with the cook or chef far more focused on getting the food ready than they are on safety.
 
If there are young children in the house, it is therefore imperative to keep them well away from the kitchen whenever it is at its busiest. In these circumstances, it is unlikely that youngsters serve any really useful purpose in any event, so it is just not necessary for them to be in an area where the danger of being burned or scalded literally surrounds them.
 
At the same time, you (or at least some other responsible adult) should always remain in the kitchen area when it is mealtime to ensure that everything is supervised and that the youngsters do not expose themselves to unnecessary danger.
 
As suggested earlier, chemical substances that are highly acid or alkaline represent a significant burns risk as well. If therefore you keep substances of this nature in the house (and in truth, you should question whether it is really necessary if you do so), they should be kept under lock and key.
 
Furthermore, even if these substances are only handled by responsible adults, it is still essential that they should take precautions such as wearing protective gloves and the like to minimize the risk of getting these ‘burns-waiting-to-happen' on your skin.
The next thing that should be on your own safety checklist is to ensure that your home wiring is up to scratch on a regular basis. It is obvious that there should be no exposed wires with which people can burn themselves but more than this, you need to have the wiring checked (preferably once a year) as in most homes, it is the wiring system that represents the biggest fire risk.
 

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