Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Fire Safety

My husband is a firefighter. His department has had two fires recently, both starting in the kitchen. (This is really amazing--they usually have one fire a year--maybe they are set now for two years.)

Both fires destroyed the kitchens, but there was one major difference to the damage in the other rooms. One lady had learned to keep all the doors closed. In that house there was minimal smoke damage in the closed off rooms. The fire didn't have the air-flow it needed to spread quickly. The other house had all the doors open and the smoke damage was significant.

Now I know this has nothing to do with writing, but when you learn something important you want to share it. These two houses were vivid enough to my husband that we have started keeping all the doors closed. My son even going so far as to allow us to close his door all the way at night! That is new.

Be safe.

6 comments:

  1. Fascinating and yet scary too. I'll remember this!

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  2. I hate having all my doors shut, but I had heard at a fire safety display that closing children's doors at night will keep them safer in case of fire. It is a struggle to keep the balance of concerned mom.
    Thanks for the reminder. I might have to train my boys to sleep with their doors shut at night too.

    I'll be more careful during the day too.

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  3. Good tip! Thanks DJ. We usually have most of our doors close since we now have a 12 month old walker around. Here's another good reason to do it.

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  4. Oops, I meant closed (typing too fast).

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  5. So, I didn't mention in the original post because I was cautious, but Steve said it paints a better picture.

    In the house with open doors, their dog died of smoke inhilation.

    At the first house on the back side of one door there were tiger stripes of smoke where the flames licked through the crack in the door. The fire was there, but stopped by the unopened door.

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  6. Great reminder, DJ! I learned that as a child. I guess its time to implement...

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