Fire Safety Information
| Published: 10th July 2008 13:17 |
Home Fire Safety Visits
Hampshire Fire and Rescue Service can provide a free home safety visit where there is an individual need. If you are in one of our target groups we will come to your home, fit smoke detectors and provide fire safety advice. If you are not in one of our target groups we will invite you to a programmed presentation which will contain the latest fire safety advice and provide you with guidence to undertake a risk assessment of your home and a free ten year smoke detector.
To be considered for a free home safety visit, please go on to their website by clicking here. You can also call 023 80626809.
The target groups include:
- Someone over 60
- Someone hearing impaired
- Someone who has mobility difficulties
- Someone who is a smoker
- Someone who does not speak English as their first language
- Someone under 5
- Someone who is sight impaired
- Someone receiving benefits
Tips to make your home a safe home
- Fit a smoke alarm and check it regulary
- Make a fire action plan so that everyone in your house knows how to escape in the event of a fire
- Take care when cooking with hot oil and think about using thermostatically controlled deep fat fryers.
- Never leave lit candles unattended
- Ensure cigarettes are stubbed out and disposed of ccarefully
- Never smoke in bed
- Keep matches and lighters away from children
- Keep clothing away from heating appliances
- Take care in the Kitchen! Accidents whilst cooking account 59% of fires in the home
- Take special care when you are tired or when you've been drinking. Half of all deaths in domestic fires happen between 10pm and 8am
Reacting to a Smoke Alarm
When they are at work most people know the actions to take when the fire alarm sounds, they kow the route to take out the building, where to gather together outside so that the fire marshalls can check registers to see that everyone is accounted for. At no time would consider deviating from this route and going to look for the fire.
At home the story is often very different with sometimes fatal consequences.
When at home we can get used to the alarm going off while someone is cooking, but what do people do when the alarm sounds at 2am?
Often people will go and look to see WHY the alam is sounding. They even open the door to the room with the fire in, and that action will allow the fire to spread quickly around the house.
The only way to react to a smoke alarm at home at night is to:
- Get up
- get everyone in house together
- leave the building by the quickest route, usually down the stairs and out the front door
- dial 999 and ask for the Fire Service
If you follow the above advice you will survive a fire.
It seems simple doesn't it? Yet still people are killed and injured in fires every day.
Some people go to investigate why the alrm is sounding, they can end up opening a door to a fire which can quickly spread around the whole house and either trap them inside or cut them off from the stairs so they can't get back to where children are asleep.
Some people manage to leave the house safely and then go back in, either to save possessions or pets and they end up being killed or injured. Pets almost always leave the building without the owner realising and virtually all your possessions will be replaced by your house insurance.
