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Your Home Fire Safety Check List

Your family, your possessions and the home that you live in can all be in danger if a fire would break out. A fire in your home presents a danger to your lives, how you live, how comfortable you are, and all of your worldly possessions. Taking the time to set up a fire plan so that you and your children can get out of the house as quick as possible should something happen is a top priority. 

Methods of preventing fires, and putting fires out should also be topics of interest on your family discussions. In this article, I am going to remind you a bit about fire prevention, fire plans, and fire safety. 

First, let’s think about how the firemen are going to be able to reach your home. Do your children know the fire company’s number? Do your children, babysitters or other children in your home know the address in case they had to call in a fire? This could be important, vital for the fire company to find you in case of a babysitter, or even when the older children are babysitting. 

Your home numbers need to be clearly labeled – readable from the street or on the mailbox. When the fire truck is trying to locate your home this can be the difference between losing lives, losing your processions and saving lives of your family members. Ensuring that your house number is readable from the street only takes a few minutes, a few dollars, and it will give you this added safety for a lifetime. 

Another thing that you have to do for your family and fire safety is to clearly mark on the windows where children can be found. Often your local firemen will have stickers that they will provide to families that can be put on the windows where children sleep so that in case of fire, children can be found. These same stickers can be found in pet supply stores if you have pets that are kept in certain rooms all the time so that the firemen will know if there is pets in the house that they should be looking for as well as children.

No matter how many are in your family or how old your children are, you need to have a plan for fire escape. This could be as simple as where to meet after getting out of the house, how to climb out the window safely, why not to be afraid of getting out on the porch roof, and sometimes for the children in the second or third stories of a how, erecting a ladder that could be used as a temporary escape could be needed. 

If you don’t have the money to buy a roll up ladder than can be put outside the second or third story windows, at least teach your child how to tie sheets or ropes together so they can get out if they have to. This could save a life, if not now, maybe as they hand these same methods down to their own children. 

Having a fire extinguisher in the home, at least one on every floor could save your home, property and a life if the situation ever arose. What you need to do is keep one stored under the kitchen sink, in the workroom, in the garage or where ever you feel that a fire could possibly be started. While extinguishers are inexpensive, they cost just about ten to twenty dollars for a small home extinguisher. This little extinguisher can save you thousands of dollars if a fire ever started, and then you put it out!

These are great ideas for the new homeowner, the newly married, and even for those who haven’t thought much about fire safety in the last few years. Tragedy and disaster can strike at any time and you get no warning, so your being prepared will ensure safety for your family and less worrying for yourself, as you know your family knows how to get out or put out a fire!