Fire Safety Tips For Keeping Your Home & Family Safe

Here are lots of practical fire safety tips to help keep your home and your family safe from fires, including in the kitchen, electrical, and heating fires.

Since I've personally known several families whose homes have burned to the ground, plus professionally as an attorney (I no longer practice, but did for several years) I represented many additional clients dealing with the insurance company after such incidents occur, I know that home fires happens much more often than we'd like to believe.

Fire is an important safety issue in every home, so I've created a series about the most important fire safety issues for kids and our homes as a refresher course for some, but also a way for us all to learn more about this issue.

Do You Know The Most Common Causes Of Fire In Your Home?

Fires can occur in your home for lots of reasons. However, some of the most common ways for a house fire to start include:

• Cooking
• Heating
• Electrical failures and malfunctions
• Smoking

Fire Prevention While Cooking

Here are some safety tips in honor of fire safety week you should keep in mind while cooking in the kitchen.

• Stay in the kitchen while food is cooking -- don't walk away and forget something
• Keep your stove and counters decluttered so that there is room to move things around, and so nothing gets too close to a heat source or flame
• Keep curtains and other flammable objects away from the stove
• Keep a very watchful eye on your kids if they are in the kitchen while you are cooking, and if they are too young to help responsibly keep them away so they don't get burned

A bonus tip while cooking is to make sure all pot handles are pointing toward the back of the stove. This does not necessarily prevent a fire, but can keep a child or even yourself from knocking the handle and getting scalding hot food or liquid on them.

In addition, one of the most common types of kitchen fires are grease fires. Check out my article on what to do in case of a grease fire here.

Fire Safety Week Tips For Heating

Heating your home is a necessity in the winter months, but you want to do so safely.

Here are some tips to help you keep your home safe and warm:

• Do not use portable space heaters while you are sleeping or out of the room, since they can pose a large fire hazard
• If you do use space heaters make sure they are a safe distance of at least three feet from anything that might burn, including the wall, furniture, humans and animals
• Make sure your fireplace, if used, has a screen that can catch sparks and keep them from coming into the interior of your home
• Get your chimney cleaned and inspected annually, by a professional
• Make sure all propane and other fuels are stored outside the home, and not inside it. Many people keep gas tanks in their garage, but I would reconsider this if your garage is attached to your house

Fire Safety Tips For Electricity

Electricity is one of the wonders of the modern world, but it can be dangerous if not used properly. Here are some tips for safe use of electricity as part of fire safety week.

• Do not place extension cords underneath carpets or across doorways
• Periodically inspect your electrical cords on all appliances and other items for wear and tear, to make sure they are not cracked or frayed
• Do not plug too many things into one electrical outlet, otherwise you can overload the circuit

Fire Safety Tip To Prevent Fires From Smoking

This tip is easy and obvious -- don't smoke. It is bad for your health, the health of the people around you, and can be dangerous in regard to accidentally setting fires.

In addition, children have a hard time understanding that matches and lighters are not toys, so keep them out of children's reach if you must smoke.

Additional Fire Safety Tips And Articles

• How To Use A Fire Extinguisher (with video)
• How To Put Out Kitchen Grease Fire (with video)
• How To Teach Your Child To Stop Drop And Roll (with video)
• How To Check Your Smoke Alarm
• How To Make Your Family's Fire Escape Plan (with video)

Photo of electric outlet courtesy of State Farm

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