Fire Prevention
Click on the logos below for valuable fire prevention information from these organizations and agencies:
Smoke Alarms / Detectors:
According to the National Fire Protection Association:
“Smoke alarms that are properly installed and maintained play a vital role in reducing fire deaths and injuries.
Smoke alarms save lives. If there is a fire in your home, smoke spreads fast and you need smoke alarms to give you time to get out. Having a working smoke alarm cuts the chances of dying in a reported fire in half. Almost two-thirds of home fire deaths resulted from fires in homes with no smoke alarms or no working smoke alarms.
Here’s what you need to know!
- Install smoke alarms in every bedroom, outside each sleeping area and on every level of your home.
- Test your smoke alarms every month.
- When a smoke alarm sounds, get outside and stay outside.
- Replace all smoke alarms in your home every 10 years”
National Fire Protection Association – Smoke Alarm Central
United States Fire Administration – Smoke and Fire Alarms
Consumer Reports – CO and Smoke Alarm Buying Guide
Consumer Product Safety Commission – Smoke Alarms – Why, Where, and Which
First Alert – Detectors – Smoke & Fire
Kidde Home Safety – Kidde Smoke Alarms
Fire Sprinklers:
According to the National Fire Protection Association:
Properly installed and maintained automatic fire sprinkler systems help save lives.
Because fire sprinkler systems react so quickly, they can dramatically reduce the heat, flames, and smoke produced in a fire. Fire sprinklers have been around for more than a century, protecting commercial and industrial properties and public buildings. What many people don’t realize is that the same life-saving technology is also available for homes, where roughly 85% of all civilian fire deaths occur.
Facts about home fire sprinklers:
Automatic sprinklers are highly effective and reliable elements of total system designs for fire protection in buildings. According to an American Housing Survey, 4.6% of occupied homes (including multi-unit) had sprinklers in 2009, up from 3.9% in 2007, and 18.5% of occupied home built in the previous four years had sprinklers. Source: U.S. Experience with Sprinklers
- 85% of all U.S. fire deaths occur in the home.
- Home fire sprinklers can control and may even extinguish a fire in less time than it would take the fire department to arrive on the scene.
- Only the sprinkler closest to the fire will activate, spraying water directly on the fire. In 84% of home fires where the sprinklers operate, just one sprinkler operates.
- If you have a fire in your home, the risk of dying is cut by about one-third when smoke alarms are present (or about half if the smoke alarms are working), while automatic fire sprinkler systems cut the risk of dying by about 80%.
- In a home with sprinklers, the average property loss per fire is cut by about 70%
(compared to fires where sprinklers are not present.) - The cost of installing home fire sprinklers averages $1.35 per sprinklered square foot.
National Fire Protection Association – Home Fire Sprinklers
California Fire Sprinkler Coalition – Bringing Safety Home
United States Fire Administration – Home Fire Sprinkler Outreach Materials
Wildfire Prevention:
Information about wildland fire, wildland urban interface, vegetation clearances, and creating a defensible space around residences and buildings:
Firewise Communities USA: Becoming a Firewise Community
General Guidelines for Creating Defensible Space
California Public Resourses Code 4291 – 4299