Last year alone, over 200 people died in domestic fires. Clearly, fire safety in the home is of the utmost importance and something that, unfortunately, not all households meet which, consequently, can and does result in tragically preventable deaths.
Annually, faulty electric appliances, wiring and overloaded sockets cause a huge 6,000 house fires across the country. However, this is not the only threat in the home; around half of all domestic fires are caused by cooking accidents, two fires a day are caused by candles and, tragically, over one person a week loses their life due to a fire caused by a cigarette.
The importance of Fire Safety in the home has become more and more apparent recently, due to its coverage in the news. In the past 6 months there have been widespread recalls of electrical products, following malfunctions that have led to overheating and domestic fires:
Back in December many of Britain’s biggest retailers found themselves a little out on a ledge and having to recall a lot of hoverboards over the Christmas period. The government advised consumers to rethink buying them as Christmas gifts after several were reported to have exploded or caught fire. More recently, back in February, the global computer giant Microsoft found itself recalling more than two million power cords after 56 of them, in the same manner, overheated and caught fire.
These fires are easy to prevent and manage, and by implementing a few simple fire safety measures in the home you can ensure that you protect your family and keep them safe. This article will highlight the easiest and most effective ways that you can provide a safe home environment for everyone under your roof.
The easiest way to ensure fire safety in the home is via installing and maintaining working smoke alarms.
In fact, you are four times more likely to die in a fire if you don’t have a smoke alarm that works. It is, however, of the highest priority to ensure that you test your smoke alarms regularly. Additionally, smoke alarms should be strategically placed with at least one alarm on each level of your house, this will maximise the area that is protected and make sure that, if a fire does catch, it can be identified and hopefully diffused at the earliest possible stage.
Another way of establishing fire safety in the home is by having a pre-bed checklist. Your home is most vulnerable to a fire outbreak at nighttime, principally because you are in bed and thus unable to keep an eye on things. Running through a mental checklist every evening is a good practice to get into. This checklist should include things such as unplugging appliances that are not meant to be left plugged in overnight (not, of course, your fridge), ensuring escape points remain clear, close doors, make sure that door keys are in an easily accessible place and that everyone knows where they are kept, fireguards are on and heaters off, all cigarettes and candles etc. are properly put out.
Following a list such as this will not only give you peace of mind at night but also make sure that, if the worst should happen and you do experience a house fire, you will easily, quickly and more importantly safely be able to evacuate you and your family.
If despite all the above precautionary measures, a fire does indeed break out in your home, the most important thing is to evacuate and then to call the emergency services as quickly and as safely as you can.
However, there are measures that you can take to compartment the fire and stop it spreading, in order to reduce the damage caused. There are several manual measures such as fire blankets, fire extinguishers, and fire sprinklers. Nevertheless, the most effective and safe measure to stop a fire from spreading is an automatically deploying fire curtain.
The installation of a fire curtain is not only effective in stopping the spread of a fire in its tracks, but it is also a discreet option for fire safety in the home. They can be stored in the ceiling so that they cannot be seen. This also enables the removal of load bearing walls, which assists the design of large open spaces, favoured by contemporary residential building design, and coincides with measures that provide reliable fire safety in the home.
Coopers Fire are industry leaders in providing, designing, installing and servicing fire curtains and smoke curtains. We can offer bespoke services and design a smoke or fire curtain that completely meets your desired plans.
If you would like to discuss what products we have on offer and what we can do to help you protect your family and ensure fire safety in your home please visit our website or contact us.
