· Burning of candles, garden refuse, incense, mosquito coils and other open burning - The sources of heat is quite obvious. When we do any open burning, make sure that source of heat is not able to reach other surrounding materials. It is good practice to clear area before doing open burning. We must also think about how to control fire if it gets too big. Be ready to dose fire with water if it gets too big.

We know that we need a source of heat, a fuel, and oxygen in order to have a fire. Other than looking at all places where we encounter sources of heat, it is good preventive practice to store easily combustible materials safely. Some materials do not need a lot of heat in order to ignite, while some materials can be kept at quite high temperatures without any fire occurring. We need to identify easily combustible materials and keep them out of harms way.

Some materials in home are known to be easily combustible. It is advisable to store these materials in a cool and isolated place away from house if possible. Should a fire occur by any chance, they will have less opportunity to spread. Below are a list of commonly used inflammable materials in home. However, list is not exhaustible:

· Paints, turpentine, spirit, aerosols for spray paints. · Kerosene, petrol, diesel, and other oils used for fuel. · Aerosols used for pesticides · Paper and wood, especially when dry · Vegetable oils used in cooking · Other solvents like nail polish

There are other materials that can catch fire if brought to a source of heat. Some of them are listed below. The best way to handle these is to do regular house cleaning to remove them:

· Loose organic dust like sawdust, cotton dust, woolen dust · Oily deposits from atmosphere · Dust and deposits from insects

Involving Others

Sometimes, even though we have taken all precautions, fires can still come from a neighbor's house. Sometimes, it can even come from sky in form of fireworks! Sometimes sparks from a neighbor's rubbish fire can fly over to your own home and cause a fire.

So it is simply not enough that you alone know how to prevent fires. The people around you should also know about fire prevention.

Everybody needs to be educated in fire prevention. When a fire happens in neighborhood, there is a very real possibility that fire can spread to surrounding houses. It is essential that no fires at all start in any of houses in neighborhood or even community.

When everyone understands grave consequences of their actions, fire risk becomes more manageable.

Children are especially high potential fire starters if they are not taught about risks. With their natural curiosity, playing with fire comes naturally to them at some point in their life. Adults have responsibility to impart knowledge of fire prevention and consequences of fire to them quite early in their growing up years.

In order for adults to have this knowledge themselves, relevant authorities should organize courses on fire safety and fire safety awareness campaigns. The media, including newspapers, magazines, television and radio, has an important role to play in getting message of fire prevention to general public. Their message should be able to reach masses and ingrain in them importance of fire prevention.

The message of fire prevention should be delivered continuously over a long period of time. A fire safety campaign should only be considered successful when people considers fire prevention a natural thing to do. It must become habit and a daily way of life. Then only can lives and properties be secured.

The knowledge of fire prevention is even more important than fire detection and fire fighting. If a fire does not start, or is prevented from starting, there is no longer any need for fire detection and fire fighting. Everybody should be preventing fires even before it can start.

Is prevention enough?

Sometimes, we have done best we can. We have isolated sources of heat. We have stored away inflammable materials away from sources of heat. We have done whatever we can to best of our knowledge.

Can a fire still start?

Incidents of fire can still happen. For example, a mouse in your house may decide to chew on your highly powered electrical wires, or a lizard may managed to crawl into your electrical switchboard and cause a short circuit, or hot weather may cause weeds and bushes around your house to catch fire.

So while steps taken for prevention of fires will keep us safe most of time, it is also good to be prepared in case a fire still starts despite our actions.

There are portable smoke detectors available in market for those who want to have an early warning when a fire starts. This can in fact be considered prevention too - preventing a large fire. These smoke detectors will be able to alert occupants about any small fires so that it can be put off before it becomes large and unmanageable. It can prevent loss of property and lives. Any fires detected early have a very good chance of being extinguished.

It is also good to keep a portable fire extinguisher at home for purpose of putting out small fires. For home, most suitable portable fire extinguisher to keep is a dry powder extinguisher because it will be able to handle all likely classes of fires found in home. It can be used to put out fires involving solid materials like wood and paper, oils and even electrical fires without risk of electrical shocks.

In conclusion, when we are able to instill awareness of fire prevention to all people around us, we will have won battle with fire. Fire becomes our ally and we can tap its benefits without worrying about its consequences.

Fire becomes our friend and not our foe.

Protect your home with Fire Alarms at Smoke Detector

4. Take photographs of your child’s artwork. You can keep reminder and get rid of bulk. By way, this is a great way to use up those last few pictures on a roll of film.

5. Use polypropylene memorabilia pockets to safely encapsulate and display small items such as ticket stubs, hospital tags or locks of hair.

6. Create a pocket page in your scrapbook album to hold awards, greeting cards, report cards or children’s artwork. To do this you’ll need two pieces of acid-free cardstock sized to fit your album. Cut top off of one piece so that it is three to four inches shorter than other piece (leaving width as is). Place acid-free adhesive on bottom and two sides and adhere shorter piece directly on top of full-size piece of cardstock. This will provide you with a pocket to hold your assorted memorabilia, and you can embellish front of pocket as you choose.

Be sure to use acid-free adhesives when mounting memorabilia directly onto your album pages. You can use self-adhesive photo corners or a corner slot punch for those items that you don’t want to permanently mount.

To safeguard your precious keepsakes, practice these “Don’ts”:

Do not use rubber cement, tape or glue, which may contain acid and harmful chemicals that will destroy your photos and memorabilia.

Do not laminate memorabilia. Laminating with common heat-sealing laminating machines permanently traps dust and contaminants in a closed environment. Laminating machines that use heat subject your memorabilia to high heat and strong pressure that can cause it to age more quickly. And, laminating with a heat-sealing laminating machine means that lamination is irreversible.

Never put newspaper directly into your scrapbook albums. Newspaper is a cheap paper that contains lignin. Have you ever noticed how quickly a newspaper yellows especially if it exposed to sunlight? The yellowing effect is result of lignin. Newspaper also contains acid. Storing photographs and memorabilia with newspaper creates a damaging environment for your keepsakes, as acid will migrate from newspaper.

If you do not want to create a scrapbook album, you can still enjoy your items in future, by ensuring their safety with use of archival-quality storage supplies such as: acid-free file folders, archival boxes or polypropylene enclosures. (Remember: All supplies for storing and displaying photos or memorabilia should be acid-free, lignin-free, and PVC free!)

If you’ve been feeling guilty because you haven’t organized and protected your family’s keepsakes, then take heart. This accomplishment pales in comparison to significance of journey you embark on each day -- creating joyful memories with people you cherish most in your life.

Copyright 2003-2004, by The Sentimental Playground. Article may be reprinted with permission. Please contact info@organizedphotos.com