Fire Safety

• Install Smoke alarms - Smoke alarms save lives by warning you about a fire while there's time to escape. Install alarms on every floor of your home, including the basement, and outside each sleeping area ~ inside as well, if y ou sleep with the door closed ~ and test them once a month. Smoke alarms lose their sensitivity over time. Replace alarms that are 10 or more years old

• Automatic home fire sprinkler system - Consider installing an automatic fire sprinkler system in your home. Sprinklers can contain and even extinguish a fire in less time than it takes the fire department to arrive.

• Plan your escape - If there is a fire, you'll have to get out fast, so be prepared. Draw a floor plan of your home, marking two ways out of each room. Go over the plan with your household so that everyone knows how to escape if there's a fire, then physically walk through each escape route.

• In a fire, crawl low under smoke - Smoke and heat rise, so during a fire there's cleaner, cooler air near the floor. Always try another exit if you encounter smoke when escaping a fire. But if y ou have to escape through smoke, crawl on your hands and knees with your head 1 to 2 feet above the floor.

• Smokers' safety - In North America, more fatal fires start from smoking that from any other cause. Don't smoke in bed or when you're drowsy (falling asleep). Give smokers large, deep, non-tip ashtrays, and soak cigarette butts and ashes before dumping them. If someone has been smoking in your home, check on or around furniture, including under cushions, for smoldering cigarettes.

• Cook safely - Always stay with the stove when cooking, or turn off the burners if you walk away.  Wear clothes with snug or rolled up sleeves when you cook to avoid catching your clothes on fire. Turn pot  and pan handles inward where you can't bump them and children can't grab them, and enforce a "kid-free zone" 3 feet around your stove when you cook.

•  Keep matches and lighters out of sight - Keep matches and lighters away from children. Lock them up high and out of reach, and use only child resistant lighters. teach young children to tell you if they find any matches or lighters; teath older children to bring matches or lighters to an adult before they fall into young hands.

• Use electricity safely - Know the warning signs of problems for electrical appliances: flickering lights, smoke or odd smells, blowing fuses, tripping circuit breakers or frayed or cracked cords. Check carefully any appliance that displays a warning sign, and repair or replace. Don't run extension cords across doorways or where they can be walked on or pinched by furniture.

• Space heaters - Keep portable and other space heaters at least 3 feet away from anything that can burn ~ including you ~ and turn heaters off when you leave home or go to bed. Have chimneys and furnaces inspected by a professional at the start of each heating season.

• STOP, DROP, AND ROLL - If your clothes catch fire, stop ~ don't run. Drop gently to the ground, cover your face with your hands, and roll over and over or back and forth to smother the flames. Cool the burn with cool water then call 911.