Fire Prevention Month

Fire prevention week is happening now, October 6th-12th! The National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) has declared this year’s theme as “Not Every Hero Wears a Cape. Plan and Practice Your Escape!” While we tend to hyper-focus on fire safety during the month of October, it is important to be compliant with NFPA codes and safety tips not just one week or month of the year, but 24/7, 365 days of the year. 

Does your home or place of business have a fire safety escape plan? According to the NFPA, ‘every 24 seconds a fire department in the United States responds to a fire somewhere in the nation.’ To put that in perspective, that’s an average of SIXTY times a day! 

Facts
– More than 2,500 people die in home fires each year.¹⁾ National Fire Protection Association 
– If a home fire occurs, the risk of dying decreases by about 80% when the home is equipped with a fire sprinkler system. ²⁾ National Fire Protection Association 

Keeping yourself, your family, and your place of business more safe can be as easy as following through on a few of our below fire safety tips. 

1. Install smoke and CO alarms in all appropriate rooms and entryways. Once installed, test them monthly for reliability. For deaf or hard of hearing individuals, install a bed or pillow shaker that sync with the smoke detector. NFPA recommends finding these products from companies such as lifetonesafety.com, safeawake.com and silentcall.com. Be sure to choose devices that are recognized with a testing laboratory label!
   
   
2. Invest in a fire extinguisher, or two, or three. It’s recommended to have an extinguisher on hand in every level of your home or business, as well as in the kitchen or garage. 
   
   
3. Design an escape plan. For families with small children, assign a meeting spot for once they’ve exited the home and teach them how to dial 911. For places of business, be sure to conduct regular fire drills and ensure all new employees are privy to your fire or emergency plans. Drills are the perfect time to see if there are any missing pieces in your fire evacuation plan and adjust accordingly. 
   
   
4. Install a fire sprinkler system! This may seem like overkill but with the average cost of a home fire sprinkler system at $1.35 per sprinklered square foot, it’s well worth it.³⁾ The Fire Protection Research Foundation (Study found HERE) This cost is well below more common home projects such as driveway paving, laminate or even carpeted flooring, which would cost you a lot more and do nothing to help save you or your family. Albeit, they are much more appealing to the eye, we’ll give you that.
   
   Like our tips but interested in learning more? Visit the NFPA’s website for additional resources and materials.