Fireproofing Hazardous Areas of The Home

The most important thing you can do for your home is fireproofing hazardous areas of your home. This is the single biggest thing that you can do to protect your family members from a horrible fate. It is easy to do as long as you are aware of the dangerous areas of your home. The primary areas where fires generally start are in the kitchen, around the fireplace, around electrical outlets, in garages, and where you keep your cleaning and other chemicals for household chores. Follow these steps and you can be sure that you will fireproof your house.

Identify Problem Areas

Some places in your house are obviously not fire hazards. You won't have to worry about a fire starting in your shower because if it starts there you will have water immediately to put it out. But other areas might not be so obvious. If you have many different plugs in a single outlet, you are risking a spark and a fire. Make sure that you only use approved extension chords and power strips. Do not put several power strips together. The more extension chords and power strips you have connected to a single outlet, the greater the risk of a fire from a spark. More obvious places that need fireproofing are the kitchen and the fireplace. The kitchen stove is the most common place for a fire to start. The second biggest area for a fire to start is in the fireplace. Awareness of the danger in these areas can prevent fires.

Fireproof the Kitchen

The kitchen stove is the greatest danger to fire in a house. This area should take the most amount of time for fireproofing. Make sure that you don't have any loose paper around the stove. If you do, remove it. If you have cookbooks near the stove, move them to a bookshelf somewhere else in the kitchen. If you are using a cookbook for a dish you are preparing, move it to somewhere near the sink instead of the stove. Make sure that anything flammable is far enough away so that the heat can not cause a flame.

One of the most important things you can do for your kitchen is to get at least one and preferably several fire extinguishers. A fire extinguisher should be in plain sight in the kitchen. Everyone in the household should know where the fire extinguisher in the kitchen is and they should know how to use it. If you have children in the house, you might want to buy an extra fire extinguisher and let them operate it outside so that they will know what to expect should they need to extinguish a fire on their own.

Fireproof the Fireplace

That sounds like an oxymoron because a fireplace is where you would want a fire. That's why it is called a fire place. However this is the second leading cause of fire in the house. Embers might pop out of the fireplace from the wood and hit carpet or a rug. Make sure that the rug or carpet is far enough away from the fireplace that you don't have to worry about a spark. Sparks can travel great distances from the fireplace so you will need to check the building code to ensure that you have enough of a distance from the fireplace. Also the chimney needs to be checked regularly for obstructions. Birds like to make nests in the safety and comfort of a dormant fireplace. Bird nests are highly flammable. Also leaves in the fall can clog up the top of a chimney. Make sure that you clean out the chimney at least once a year before you have your first fire in your home.