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· 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
