Fire Safety at home
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Fire Safety at home: Shocking figures have been released by the Home Office showing that last year, 248 people lost their lives due to a fire at home. Many of these could have been prevented had some basic measures for fire safety at home been put in place. Fire safety precautions at home can be very simple to implement. Sometimes you just need to look at your home with fresh eyes, rather like looking at the woods & not the trees.
Everyday fire risks are present in our homes. Well-known risks include candles and cooking left unattended, covered electrical heaters, overloaded plugs, and cigarettes. Not forgetting cheap mobile phone chargers & unsafe Christmas decorations.
Here are a few ways to keep you and your family, friends and neighbours safe.
Fire Safety at home – Smoke alarms
- Install smoke alarms on every level of your home and make sure you can hear them throughout your home.
- Test your smoke alarms monthly – they could save your life, but only if they are working.
- Offer to test the smoke alarms of an older family member, neighbour or friend who needs help.
Fire Safety at home – Fire escapes
- Go around your house and identify which windows are fire escape windows.
- Plan and practise how you’d escape in a fire and have a plan B.
Sources of heat
- Most accidental fires start in the kitchen, so take care and never leave cooking unattended.
- Don’t overload plug sockets and adapters – watch out for loose wiring, scorch marks, and hot plugs and sockets.
- Keep heaters clear from curtains and furniture and never use them to dry clothes.
- Stub cigarettes out properly and dispose of them carefully – put it out, right out.
- Ensure that you unplug all phone & device chargers before you go to sleep.
- Ensure that you’ve removed all the fluff from your tumble-dryers filter before you use it next time.
Conclusion
We’ll always promote having some knowledge of how to keep yourselves safe, whether you’re at home or at work. Fire safety precautions at home can be very easy to set up. At a basic level we’d recommend our online e-learning Fire Safety course. Even if just one person in your household undertakes the course, you’ve started the process of ensuring fire safety at home.
I hope that you’ve found this article helpful. If you’ve any questions, please do add a comment below.
If you want to get hands on practice using fire extinguishers then we’d recommend our Fire Marshal Training. We offer this course to individuals as well as businesses. During the course you’ll get to use both water and CO2 fire extinguishers and learn when you should and shouldn’t use them. (Different fires = different fire extinguishers).
Our courses run monthly at our training centre in Cheshire with the option to hold private courses for your colleagues at your venues, nationwide. Please get in touch if you have a specific requirement not listed on our course page and we will do all we can to accommodate your requirements.
