Every year home fires claim more lives than all other natural disasters combined. Cleveland Water & Fire Restoration wants to stress that one of the best ways to both protect your children and prevent home fires is to educate your children about fire safety. Take the mystery out of playing with fire by teaching your children that fire is not a toy, it is a tool.
Firefighters and teachers do their part to educate children about the dangers of fire. They explain what to do if there is a fire in your child’s home or school. Remember the slogan “Stop, Drop, and Roll”. But no matter how much your child learns about fire safety at school, it’s up to you to reinforce that learning. It’s great that fire safety is taught in schools but the real learning comes from the home.
Make and Practice a Fire Safety Plan
Everyone in your family must react instantly in a fire situation. Not only should you plan an escape route, you should create an escape route from several different areas in your home. There’s no way to guarantee exactly where everyone will be if a fire breaks out. Knowing how to escape from the bedroom is just as important as knowing how to escape from the family room. After your plans are complete, practice, practice, practice. You have only minutes before smoke makes it hard to breathe or see and the heat becomes unbearable.
Simple Fire Safety Steps
- Store matches and lighters up out of the reach of your children. Maybe even locate these items in a cabinet you can lock.
- Teach your children to never pick up matches or lighters if they find them. Instead they should call an adult and point these items out to the nearest adult.
- Never leave your children alone in the kitchen while cooking is taking place.
- Never leave your children alone in a room where there are burning candles.
- Upon occasion, inspect your children’s bedrooms and play areas for evidence that they have been playing with matches or lighters.
- Install smoke detectors throughout your home and show your children what they sound like when they go off.
- Emphasize that if a home fire ever happens that once you get out, stay out. “Things” can be replaced, people can’t.
- Purchase an escape ladder if bedrooms are on an upper floor.
- Buy a fire extinguisher. Learn how to use it properly.
Fire Is a Tool, Not a Toy
Teach your children that it takes three things to have a fire: oxygen, heat, and fuel, or something to burn. Without any one of the three, a fire can’t exist. But not all fires are bad fires. We roast marshmallows and hot dogs around a camp fire. We heat our homes with fire. We cook our food with fire. When we use fire in this way it is controlled.
If your home has been damaged by fire, call Cleveland Water & Fire Restoration, at 440-530-4881. Our fire restoration services are available around the clock. 365 days a year. We can handle content cleaning and pack out, demolition, deodorization, and emergency board ups. Our estimate is free and without any obligation. Call us today.