By Mike Conrad, Division Chief Operations Aptos La Selva Fire Protection District
First I hope by now you have taken advantage of the good weather and have prepared around your home for winter. (Yes, it looks so far like we may have a winter keep your fingers crossed, well not so tight that we have a bad winter). Cleaned the gutters on the house, made sure water runs away from your property and not on to your neighbor’s property, cleaned the chimney and had your furnace checked.
Make sure that all combustibles that may have been placed close to heating appliances during the summer while not in use have been moved away. We will often see house fire’s that result from a chair or other household item being placed next to or on top of a furnace during the summer to save space and then forgot about until the heater comes on and the item catches fire.
Second, don’t forget to change the batteries in your smoke and CO detectors when you change the clocks this month. Your first line of defense is always going to be a properly working detector. Also if you can’t remember when you purchased your detectors it may be time to replace the entire unit. Detectors have a useful life of about 10 years, check with the manufacturer of your detectors to see what they recommend.
Third, nationally the occurrence of home fires peaks during the holiday season on average during this time fires cause 900 million dollars in loss, account for hundreds of deaths and thousands of injuries many of these too children. Almost a third of these fires start in the kitchen with the increased use during this time of year.
What can we do to improve safety in the kitchen? First make sure all handles and appliance cords are safely out of the reach of children. Stay focused while cooking, the holidays are busy and full of distractions and one can easily lose track of items on the stove or in the oven.
Historically Thanksgiving Day see’s the most home fires than any other day throughout the year. Are you going to deep fry a Turkey this year? Interesting information I can across from State Farm Insurance; they report approximately 1000 fire’s a year occur as a result of people deep frying turkeys. If this is in your Thanksgiving Day menu plans please make sure to do it outside away from combustibles and follow the instructions to the letter, the risk of injury and fire are very high when this cooking style is done incorrectly.
Candles are also responsible for many holiday season fires. Keep your candles in a non-tip container approved for candle use. Never leave a burning candle unattended and always extinguish before leaving home or going to bed. Be careful using candles that have items embedded in the wax like leaves or other combustible items, many of these types over the years have been recalled because if left to burn they can heat up the items which catch fire and drop to the table of floor starting a house fire.
Let’s finish the year on a strong safety note, there are no good times to have a house fire but the holidays seem to be even worse.
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For more information please visit our website at www.aptosfire.com.