Fire Safety – What You Need To Know

5 steps to take now to decrease your fire risk and increase your safety:

#1: Exit Strategy: Prepare, plan and practice

A home evacuation strategy will help keep your family safe in case of a fire. Study your house indoors and out to determine an escape plan in case of fire. It’s easy – and essential – to create a family home evacuation plan. Follow these important steps:

• Draw a floor plan or map of your home, including windows and doors
• Mark the location of every smoke alarm
• Indicate two exit strategies for each room
• Walk through your house together as a family, noting all possible exits and escape routes
• Check that routes are clear and that windows and doors open easily
• Choose an outside landmark, such as a light post or mailbox, that’s a safe distance from your house where everyone can meet after they’ve escaped the fire.  Mark this site on your plan.

#2: Ask the Pros: Different cooking fires require different responses.   Here’s a recipe for success:

• Don’t pour water on a grease fire.  Also, don’t use a fire extinguisher on a pan fire – both can spread the flames and intensify the fire.
• Smother small grease fires with baking soda or by covering the pan with a lid.   Then turn off the burner and, using potholders, slide the pan off.
• Use care when cooking with oil, grease and butter, which are highly flammable.  If you see bubbles, remove the pan from the burner.
• Keep the door closed on an oven fire and turn off the appliance
• Do the same with a microwave fire.  Hit “stop” and unplug it. Don’t open the door until the fire is completely out. Have your microwave serviced before using it again, or simply replace it.
• Use a multipurpose ABC-rated fire extinguisher for small fires involving appliances, linens, or electrical outlets. Learn how the extinguisher works before you need it, and follow maintenance instructions in the owner’s manual. Check extinguishers monthly to see if they are charged.

#3:  Be Fire Smart About Appliances

Ever left the house when the clothes dryer was running?  Or stepped away from the stove while something was simmering?  If so, you’re not alone.   In Liberty Mutual’s fire safety survey, household appliances were among the concerns cited most often. Yet 41 percent of respondents said they’d left the dryer running when out of the house, and 26 percent said they’d left the stove unattended while cooking – two frequent causes of home fires.

#4: Safekeeping

Take a few moments to protect your important documents from fire.  It’s one of those things you always mean to do, and now’s the time to do it.  Gather your critical documents and put them in a fireproof safe or, even better, away from home in a secure safe deposit box.

Be sure to include:

• Proof of residence (deed or lease)
• Birth and marriage certificates
• Passports and naturalization papers
• Social Security cards
• Car titles
• Copies of driver’s licenses
• Bank and credit card information
• Wills, legal medical forms and copies of recent tax returns
• Stocks and bonds
• Home inventory (written list, videotape or photographs of everything in your home)
• Backup computer files
• Insurance policies

#5: Where There’s Smoke

You have smoke alarms, but are they in working order?  Inexpensive, easy to install and nondescript – smoke detectors are easy to take for granted. But when a fire starts in your home, the shrill signal could likely be your first – and only – warning and the difference between life and death.  In 2005, almost three-fourths of home fire deaths occurred in homes where smoke alarms weren’t working or were absent, according to the National Fire Protection Association.

©2008 Liberty Mutual Insurance Company, 175 Berkley Street, Boston MA 02116.  All rights reserved.

Tags: featured, fire extinguisher safety, fire protection, fire safety

Category: Buyers