How To Keep Safe From A Fire

Every year, over a million homes go up in smoke, causing thousands of deaths, thousands more injuries, and over $10 billion in damages. If you have no desire to be just another statistic, then there are some safety tips which you should keep in mind.

Always Care For Your Smoke Alarms

Most deaths in house fires occur in homes whose smoke alarms are absent or whose batteries are dead. You should always make sure your home is properly equipped with smoke alarms, and you should test them once a month to make sure they are still working properly. Even if you live in an apartment, it’s very likely that you are responsible for keeping your smoke alarms functioning.

Stay Low

Smoke tends to kill more often than the heat of the flames. Modern homes are full of materials that can release toxic fumes if burned, and more directly the carbon monoxide in smoke can prevent you from breathing in enough oxygen, causing you to suffocate. However, smoke is hot and it tends to rise, which means that if you keep your head low you have a better chance of breathing good air.

Keep Your Doors Shut

During a fire, your priority should be getting yourself and every living occupant out of the building. That said, you should never open any more doors or windows than you have to. Every open door is another way for oxygen to get in and feed the flames, and so you’re best off closing every door behind you in order to slow the fire down.

In addition, there’s an easy way to tell if there’s a fire on the other side of a door: if the handle is extremely hot, it’s because there’s a flame on the other side. Opening the door in this case is an especially bad idea since it might cause a flare-up, and so you’re better off finding another way out of the room you’re in.

Take The Stairs

It’s always a terrible idea to take the elevator during a fire. Even if they look like an all-steel construction that shouldn’t easily catch fire, elevator shafts often fill up with smoke, and more importantly their electrical parts are probably not fireproof. If the elevator gets stuck, it’s unlikely that you’ll be able to get out, and in the meantime the smoke in the shaft is steadily building up.

By contrast, the stairs of modern high-rises are generally built with fire safety in mind. There’s likely to be at least one staircase built out of concrete or some other fire-resistant material, and the doors into this staircase are heavy and close on their own, making it harder for fire and smoke to get inside the stairwell.

Don’t Encourage Fires

The best way to stay safe in a fire is to avoid causing one in the first place. It’s rare for a fire to start spontaneously and out of the blue – usually it’s caused by some sort of negligent behavior or else by a defective product. You could start a fire by keeping a gas stove running unattended, for instance, or else by failing to put out a cigarette or a candle properly. Some electronics can overheat and start an electrical fire, and if a gas heater isn’t maintained properly it might start a fire or even explode.

If you have reason to believe that you or your property is the victim of someone else’s negligence or a faulty product, then you should contact a personal injury lawyer to learn about your options. You may also find a lawyer helpful if your fire insurance is giving you a hard time about paying out your rightful claim. If you live in Sarasota or Charlotte counties in southwest Florida, then you should contact the All Injuries Law Firm for a free case review. We’ll do our best to make sure you get your rightful compensation.