Please bring out the family to Flourtown Fire Company’s annual Fire Prevention Open House, Monday, October 7 from 6 – 8 PM. We’ll have food, demonstrations, and equipment tours of all we offer the community.

We also have some fire prevention tips for you, see you Monday night, we look forward to seeing you:

Cooking

• Two out of every 5 home fires start in the kitchen.
• Unattended cooking was a factor in 34%o of reported home cooking fires.
• Two-thirds of home cooking fires started with ignition of food or other cooking materials.
• Children under the age of 5 face a higher risk of non-fire burns associated with cooking than being burned in a cooking fire.

Heating

• The leading factor contributing to heating fires was failure to clean, creosote from solid fueled heating equipment, primarily chimneys.
• Portable or fixed space heaters were involved in one-third of home heating fires and four out of five home heating deaths
• Half of home heating fire deaths resulted from fires caused by heating equipment too close to products that can burn, such as upholstered furniture, clothing, mattresses, or bedding
• In recent years, heating has become the 2^nd leading cause of home fires, fire deaths, and injuries.

Smoking Materials

• During 2007-2011 smoking materials caused an estimated 17,900 home structure fires, resulting in 580 deaths, 1,280 injuries and $509 million in direct property damage
• Sleep was a factor in one-third of the home smoking material fire deaths
• Possible alcohol impairment was a factor in one in five of home smoking fire deaths

Smoke Alarms

• Almost two-thirds of reported home fire deaths resulted from fires in homes with no smoke alarms or no working smoke alarms
• Working smoke alarms cut the risk of dying in home fires in half
• Hardwired alarms operated 92% of the time, while battery powered alarms operated 77% of the time

Info compiled by Flourtown Firefighter Jim Belcher via NFPA