From unattended candles to smoke detectors with dead batteries,
there are things in your home that could make it unsafe. Keep your
family and belongings fire safe with these tips from local fire
departments
The fire alarm shrieks, jarring the family from sleep. A thin layer of smoke is hovering in the hall, and the smell of something burning permeates the air.
A house fire ranks high on many people’s lists of worst-case scenarios, but plenty of precautions can help South Valley residents avoid a fire.
Along with taking those precautions, the most important thing you can do to protect your family is to be ready, said Hollister Fire Chief Bill Garringer.
“Everyone should set up an evacuation drill with their family, and they should know all the routes they can take to get out of the house,” he said. “Families should know the drill, and they should practice it.”
Gilroy Fire Captain Tim Price said every member of the family should know at least two ways to get out of every room.
“If you wake up to a room full of smoke, get down low on the ground,” he said. “If you open the door and even more smoke comes pouring in, you need to close that door and get out the window. Don’t worry about making it to the front door, just get out the fastest way you can. Once you’re out, meet up with the rest of the family at the front of the house and do a head count. Every family member should know what to do in case of a fire, and every family should practice their escape plan. I can’t tell you how important that is.”
Making your home fire safe can be as simple as being aware of where you store flammable liquids, keeping your home clean or having in your home a 2A10BC fire extinguisher, which is approved for most kinds of fires including oil, gas and electrical fires.
1. Be aware of where you store flammable liquids, such as cleaning supplies or gasoline.
“We go to a lot of fires caused by water heaters in the garage,” Garringer said. “People store their dirt bike or boat gas or cleaning stuff right next to the water heater, not realizing that there’s a pilot light in there that can ignite the vapors. Those fires can also cause serious burns to whoever was working in the garage.”
2. Don’t allow yourself to be distracted when cooking.
“I can’t tell you how many calls we get that we go to and smoke is pouring out of the house, and we go into the kitchen and find the melted remains of a pot that someone forgot about and left on the stove,” Price said. “People put water on to boil and walk away, and they start doing something else and they forget they’ve left something on a hot burner.”
Cooking oil on a gas burner catching on fire is another common call, Garringer said.
“People act on instinct, so they pick up a pan of burning oil and they try to carry it to the sink so they can put water on it,” he explained. “On the way there, they end up spilling the oil, so they spread the fire. It’s a natural reaction, but it’s the wrong one. Besides, you don’t want to put water on an oil fire. It will just make it bigger. The right thing to do is have the lid to the pan right next to the stove while you’re cooking. If the oil catches on fire, put the lid on the pan and the fire will go out.”
3. Maintain all your smoke detectors, make sure they’re working and make sure you have one in all the right places.
“You should test your smoke detectors once a month and you should change the batteries twice a year, whether they need it or not,” Price said. “We say you should change the batteries whenever we change our clocks because it’s a helpful reminder. Also, make sure you’ve got enough smoke detectors. There should be at least one on each floor. In new houses, there’s supposed to be one in every bedroom and in the hallway.”
If you don’t have a smoke detector or if you’re not sure how to install one you have, simply call the fire department. They’ll bring one out and install it for you. Price also recommends having a carbon monoxide detector in your home, too.
4. Understand that a lit candle in your home is really a controlled fire.
“We go to a lot of fires that are caused by candles left unattended,” Price said. “People forget they’ve got a candle lit and they go to the store, or they light a candle upstairs and while they’re downstairs, the cat knocks the candle over with its tail. You can’t ever leave a candle unattended. A candle is a fire in your house, and you have to be very careful with it. Make sure the candle has good clearance around it and make sure it’s on something stable so it can’t be knocked over easily.”
5. Keep your home clear of extra clutter that can fuel a fire.
“Don’t turn the attic into extra storage space and put down plywood so you can stack boxes up there,” Price said. “When people do that, we can’t get in there, and that means we can’t slow down a fire. Also, don’t stack boxes up in front of any door that leads outside. You may need that door as a fire escape.”
Aside from acting as fuel for a fire, stacks of boxes can make it harder for firefighters to get their hoses to the fire.
“It’s much easier to put out a fire when you’ve just got regular furniture in the house,” Garringer said. “It’s hard to get hoses around piles of stuff, and when a spare bedroom is used for storage, and all that stuff is on fire, it’s harder to put out and that means more damage to the house.”
