What should I know about fire safety?

23 November 2017

We are talking today about fire safety because it’s that time of the year again when temperatures start to drop, and you find yourself turning on your stove and cranking up the heat. Being up to date with the fire safety procedure is essential. To protect your family, you need to take the following steps to help prevent fires in the home—and to keep everyone safe in the event of one.

Install and Maintain Smoke Alarms:

Smoke alarms give you an early warning of a fire, giving you time to escape with your children before your house is filled with flames and smoke. Most fatal fires occur at night, when people are sleeping, so an early warning is crucial. Smoke alarms can cut the risk of death by 50 percent.

How Many Smoke Alarms Do You Need?

The amount of smoke alarms you should have depends on the size of your house. Bryant recommends a minimum of one alarm per level of your house. If your house is multi-leveled, he says you should have one at the top of the stairs, in every cooking area and in the living room. You should also make sure that there is an alarm outside every room that a person sleeps in.

Test your Smoke Alarms

Make sure that smoke alarms are in order and everyone in your family is familiar with its sound.  Educate them that this particular sound means danger and they must evacuate the building immediately.

Change Smoke Alarms batteries

Remind yourself to change smoke alarms batteries one or twice a year. Give it fresh batteries and your smoke alarm will stay awake and watch for fire while you are sleeping.

How to escape during a fire.

It is always important to make a family escape plan by highlighting two escape routes for every room and a safe meeting place for all family members to gather outside of your home. This worksheet offers a handy way to make a fire escape plan for your family. Once you’ve established your escape plan, practice it regularly with your family.  Choose a meeting place outside, so you would know that everyone has gotten out safely.

Fire is a dangerous thing but if you are fully prepared and have a plan in place it could help you to save your life and lives of your loved ones. Do not ignore safety procedures make sure that you are aware of the danger and comply with safety regulations.

Our Fire Safety training course can help you to control the risk of fire and trains participants how to act safely in case of emergency, get more information here.