Week 14: Fire Safety

This week's tasks: Hold a fire drill, test your smoke alarms, and review FEMA's fire safety guidelines.

Make an escape plan and practice a fire drill in your home:

• Click here to learn about making an escape plan.  Remember, every family member should know "two ways out" of every room.  Practice your plan twice a year.

Test your smoke alarms (and change the batteries if needed):

• Smoke alarms should be checked monthly.  In smoke alarms that take non-lithium batteries, the batteries should be replaced yearly.  In smoke alarms powered by a 10-year lithium battery, the battery cannot be replaced so the whole unit should be replaced periodically according to the manufacturers instructions.  Click here to find out more about smoke alarms.

Review FEMA's fire safety guidelines:

Download and review FEMA's Home safety checklist to see how you are doing with fire safety in your home.  The FEMA website also has a lot of other good information about fire safety.  Here are a few highlights and links to get more specific information:

• Earthquakes and Fire Safety - Check out this page to learn how to minimize the risk of fire after an earthquake.  You can download this handout as a quick reference to include in your emergency binder. 
• Fire Safety in Bedrooms: Bedrooms are a common area for fires to start.  Typical culprits: (1) children playing with matches (while hiding in confined spaces like under the bed or in the closet) - children start 35,000 bedroom fires annually, (2) electrical appliances, and (3) smoking.  Click the link to learn more about bedroom fire safety.
• Electrical Fire Safety - Don't overload your circuits.  Don't run cords under rugs.  Click the link to learn more.
• Fire Safety for High Rise Residents - Special tips for staying safe in a high-rise fire.
• Fire Extinguishers: Learn about the different kinds of fire extinguishers, how to use them, and how to know when to use them (versus just evacuating the building as quickly as possible)
• Cooking Fire Safety - Choose the right equipment and use it properly.  I used a fringed dish towel to take something out of the oven once and the fringes touched the heating element and caught on fire.  So don't do that.  Click on the link to learn more.