Untitled Document

Newsletter offers tips to prevent house fires

Printed at the suggestion of Cheryl Rost
ITD Risk Management
As temperatures drop outdoors, people want to increase the temperature indoors. It’s a rite of autumn. But with renewed emphasis on home heating, comes the potential for house fires.

The Ada City-County Emergency Management office in Boise offers simple suggestions for protecting homes in its October Emergency Preparedness newsletter. “How fire-safe is your household?’ officials ask. “Somewhere in America, a home fire occurs roughly every 85 seconds. Most important, every two-and-a-half hours someone is killed in a home fire, this includes an average of three children per day.

Most victims of fire succumb to the smoke and toxic gases – not to burns, according to the newsletter. The peak period for fire deaths is between 2 a.m. and 4 a.m., when most people are asleep. Between 75 and 80 percent of fire deaths result from fires in homes that do not have functioning smoke alarms.

Although smoke alarms are present in more than 94 percent of American homes, nearly one-quarter of those do not work, mostly because batteries are missing or fully spent. That leaves more than 16 million homes at risk. The emergency management office offers six simple measures that occupants can take to reduce the risk of dying in a house fire.

The newsletter is available here in .pdf form, compliments of ITD’s risk management manager Cheryl Rost. Please take a few minutes to review the suggestions and ensure a safe, comfortable indoors climate this winter.

Ada City-County Emergency Management newsletter