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

Home Fire Sprinkler Coalition

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