Temperatures are starting to drop and people are turning up the heat if they do live in parts of the country that experience colder weather. The American Red Cross urges families to make their homes heat safe to help prevent house fires, which typically increase during the colder months.
A Red Cross study showed that more than half of us have used a space heater – which is involved in most fatal home heating fires. It is essential to maintain at least three feet of clearance around all heating equipment and never leave space heaters unattended. Follow these additional tips:
- If you must use a space heater, place it on a level, hard, non-flammable surface such as a ceramic tile floor. Do not place it on carpets and rugs, or near the bed and curtains. And keep children and pets away from the heater.
- Plug space heater power cords directly into outlets – never an extension cord. Turn it off every time you leave the room or go to sleep.
- Never use a stove or oven to heat your home.
- Never leave a fire burning in fireplaces unattended. Make sure any embers in the fireplace are extinguished before you go to bed or leave the house. Use a glass or metal fire screen to keep embers in the fireplace.
- Make sure furnaces, fireplaces, fireplaces, wood and coal stoves are inspected annually by a professional and cleaned if necessary.
PREVENT TRAGEDIES OF HOUSE FIRE
To help protect your family all year round, test your smoke alarms every month and practice your home fire escape plan until everyone can escape in less than two minutes – the amount of time you can you must get out of a burning house before it’s too late.
Visit redcross.org/fire for more information, including an escape plan to practice with your family.
You can also download the free Red Cross Emergency app by searching for “American Red Cross” in the app stores.
HOUSE FIRE CAMPAIGN Since October 2014, the Red Cross home fire campaign, with the help of community partners, has saved at least 1,414 makes a living educating families about fire safety, helping them create escape plans, and installing more than 2.6 million free smoke alarms in high-risk homes across the country.
