Keep Your Home and Family Safe From Fire

Fire Prevention Week, Oct. 6-12, is the perfect time to review and practice your family's escape plan. The No. 1 rule if a fire happens in your home: Get out, stay out and call for help. Never go back inside for anyone or anything. Call the fire department from outside your home.

Minimize Your Risks

The good news: Over the past several decades, deaths from home fires in the U.S. have steadily gone down – from 5,200 in 1980 to 2,710 in 2017, according to Injury Facts.

But even one death from a preventable fire is too many. While fire doesn't discriminate by age, it is the third leading cause of death for children ages 1 to 14. In 2017, 127 children in this age group died from fire and smoke inhalation.

Cooking fires are the leading cause of home fires and fire injuries. While cooking, make fire safety a priority by keeping these tips in mind:

• Be alert; if you are sleepy or have consumed alcohol, don’t use the oven or stovetop
• Stay in the kitchen while you are frying, grilling, boiling or broiling food
• When simmering, baking or roasting, check the food regularly, remain in the kitchen while cooking and use a timer
• Keep anything that can catch fire away from your stovetop

Heating is the second leading cause of home fires. Follow these tips from the American Red Cross:

• Keep all flammables, like paper, clothing, bedding, drapes or rugs, at least 3 feet from a space heater, stove or fireplace
• Never leave portable heaters and fireplaces unattended; turn off heaters and make sure fireplace embers are extinguished before leaving the room
• If you must use a space heater, place it on a level, nonflammable surface, like ceramic tile, not on a rug or carpet
• Keep children and pets away from space heaters
• When buying a space heater, look for models that shut off automatically if the heater falls over

In addition to cooking, other top causes of fire include smoking, electrical problems and candles. To minimize risks:

• Institute a “no smoking” policy in the house
• Check all cords and replace any that are frayed or have bare wires
• Switch to flameless candles
• Keep matches and lighters high and out of children’s reach in a locked cabinet

Working Smoke Alarms Are a Must

About three out of five fire deaths happen in homes with no smoke alarms or working smoke alarms. Smoke alarms are a key part of a home fire escape plan providing early warning reducing your risk of dying in a fire. The National Fire Protection Association recommends you:

• Install smoke alarms on every level of your home, inside bedrooms and outside sleeping areas on the ceiling or high on the wall
• Keep smoke alarms away from the kitchen, at least 10 feet from the stove, to reduce false alarms
• Use special alarms with strobe lights and bed shakers for people who are hard of hearing or deaf
• Test smoke alarms monthly
• Replace batteries annually, and change the batteries in your carbon monoxide detector at the same time
• Replace smoke alarms that are 10 or more years old