Home Fire Protection

Earlier this year, I had a safety meeting at work. There were a couple of things that really stuck with me so I decided that I needed to assess our homes fire safety systems. Here's the things I looked at: 

• smoke alarms 
• fire extinguishers 
• clothes dryer
• battery storage 
• exit plan 
• fire department 

Starting at the top... 

Smoke alarms
We had one alarm in the hallway going up to the bedrooms. I had never really looked at it so I assumed it was okay. The battery was dead. Uh oh! When did the battery die? Did it happen while we were on our honeymoon? Could we have been living in our house of a year without this smoke alarm working? It's possible. I never checked it. 

I didn't know how old the alarm was so we decided just to replace it. We replaced the one upstairs, installed one outside the kitchen, and one downstairs outside of the laundry room.

When I replaced it, there was segments of the NFPA 72 code in the pamphlet. It goes over what is required by law and what is recommended.  For example, in new construction, smoke alarms are required in every bedroom.  In our home, we are only required to have one per floor with the recommendation to have one in every room. 

NFPA is the National Fire Protection Association. According to their website (https://www.nfpa.org/), "The mission of the international nonprofit NFPA, established in 1896, is to reduce the worldwide burden of fire and other hazards on the quality of life by providing and advocating consensus codes and standards, research, training, and education. The world's leading advocate of fire prevention and an authoritative source on public safety, NFPA develops, publishes, and disseminates more than 300 consensus codes and standards intended to minimize the possibility and effects of fire and other risks."

Fire Extinguishers
This was easy.  We knew we were okay here.  We've got one in the kitchen and one in the laundry room.  Checking them was even part of my Monthly To Do List.

Clothes Dryer
This is something that I had heard about being a leading cause of house fires.  I actually knew an employee at Penn State who had their house burn down due to a dryer fire.  The dryer is very easy for people to do is to turn on the dryer before you leave.  This is not recommended!  Here's a list of recommendations from NFPA: Dryer Safety Tips.  Here's how I clean my lint trap: How To: Clean A "Clean" Lint Trap.  

Battery Storage
This was something that I hadn't given any thought to.  Just throw them in a box and you are good to go.  I was wrong.  The most common battery short is a 9V battery because the terminals are so close.  NFPA has a safety sheet just about 9V Battery Safety.  You can see a video about how a 9V battery started a house fire here.

Our batteries were just thrown in a box.  I bought a couple of battery storage cases and re-organized it.  Here's a look at our battery storage.

Exit Plan
Because we live in a tri-level, we've got multiple points of exit from the first two floors without a major drop.  On the first floor, we've got the front door, windows in the living room, windows in our office, and windows in the bathroom.  On the second floor, we've got the door to the garage, the windows out the front (with a slight drop), and the back door to the porch.  Those two are easy.  The third floor however, we've only got the windows or down the steps to the second floor.  If there's ever a fire in the kitchen, our only option is the windows.  Jumping out of a two story window was going to hurt.  We could exit to the roof over the front porch but there was still going to be a significant drop.  Our solution was an escape ladder.  Problem solved.

Here's some helpful information from NFPA about Escape Planning.

Fire Department
I didn't know the number of our local fire department.  Of course, 911 works but I wanted the actual number.  I used this website to find our local fire department number.  It appears as though they have every fire department in the county on that website.


Disclaimer: I am not a fire protection expert. I have just communicated what I have learned in my quest to update our home fire protection. If you have concerns, I would contact your local fire department.