Home fires belong in a category of their own, really. While we can give the best advice we can about tornadoes and hurricanes, blizzards or floods, in the end, the final outcome is often up for nature to decide. Home fires, however are completely avoidable, and are almost always attributed to human error.  It only takes a small amount of planning and a minimal expense in smoke detectors to protect yourself.

Another part of the problem is that fires seem like such an exotic occurrence. Most people have no qualms about wearing a seat belt in anticipation of a car wreck, but no one expects a fire in their home. I know from personal experience. As a child, my family’s house caught on fire due to poor workmanship by a contractor on a new fireplace.

We had a smoke detector (one in a hallway). No one ever bothered to check that it worked or if the batteries were fresh. It never went off.

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I owe my continued existence on planet Earth to Bill, the man that delivered my father’s newspaper. He noticed the smoke and fire and woke us all. When I woke, my bedroom was completely covered in black smoke. I couldn’t see a thing, was dizzy and lightheaded, and can remember the awkward feeling of hunting down my dog as Bill and concerned neighbors yelled at us to hurry out of the house. I can laugh about it because I lived, but had Bill been 30 minutes later, I would have been a statistic and not your humble safety writer!

The fire itself never made it past the newly built den on the other side of the house, and yet, the fire department later told us that we would have long been dead of carbon monoxide poisoning had Bill not rang our doorbell 20 times.

In the United States in 2006:

• Home fires accounted for $7 billion in damages.
• On average, someone died every 162 minutes in a fire in his or her home.
• Someone was injured every 32 minutes, due to home fires
• Four out of five fire deaths occurred in homes.
• Fire departments responded to 412,500 home fires in the United States, which claimed the lives of 2,620 people (not including firefighters) and injured another 12,925, not including firefighters.
• Forty-three percent of all home fire deaths occurred in homes without a smoke alarm.

Source: National Fire Protection Association Fire Loss in the U.S. During 2006

Preparing for a fire:
I wouldn’t dare pretend I could write one article on preparing for a fire. Everyone has different situations that probably deserve being addressed. People in mobile homes are going to have different concerns compared to someone in a high rise. There are specific fire safety concerns during cold winter months, especially the holiday season. Smokers and the hearing impaired obviously have their own concerns. We haven’t even touched on families with infants or people with special needs…but don’t worry, we’ll write them.

Alex, our fire expert, has clashed with me on how I should write this. He thought smoke alarms deserved an article on their own. I was afraid that you guys wouldn’t voluntarily read it, and so before I say anymore…

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Buy a smoke alarm
First of all, if you have ANY questions about smoke alarms or need help with installing one, talk to your local fire marshal. FEMA’s U.S. Fire Administration maintains this State Fire Points of Contact page that can be an invaluable resource to you.

Ionization or Photoelectric?

Next, understand there are two main kinds of smoke alarms: Ionization smoke alarms, and photoelectric ones. Ionization smoke alarms are ideally suited for fast moving fires that may not necessarily generate a lot of smoke at first. They contain a chamber with two small plates with a small electric current going through them. Smoke disrupts this flow and sets off the alarm.

Photoelectric detectors work by using a light beam and a photocell light receptor. When smoke gets between the light and the receptor, the alarm sounds. These work best on smoldering fires, like the one I encountered as a kid. The fire itself may not be intense enough to burn strong enough in the beginning, but the smoldering smoke often won’t be detected nearly as quickly as an ionization alarm.

Ideally, you’ll want a mix of both kinds of smoke alarms, and you’ll want to install them on every floor of your residence, and ideally in every bedroom, and in hallways outside bedrooms. Avoid putting them too near kitchen appliances, windows ceiling fans or bathrooms. These places often can be the source of false positives.

Maintenance
You’ll want to test them every month. You should replace the batteries at least once a year. Daylight savings changes are a good time of year to be reminded to do this. Also, every ten years, you should toss them and replace them with new alarms. Don’t rely on aging smoke alarms!

Options
Newer alarms have a variety of options, which obviously make them more expensive, but offer more protection. Instead of the traditional 9-volt battery, many newer models can be installed in to your home’s electrical wiring, and use a battery only as a backup. Other models feature a built-in, long-term battery with a 10-year lifespan. That way, you never have to replace the battery. When the battery dies, you replace the whole unit.

The newest trendl, however, is interconnected smoke alarms. Using wireless technology, these guys can “talk” to each other. If one goes off, they all do, which can be very advantageous in a large home. Other homeowners are opting more and more for residential fire sprinklers, and certainly anyone building a new home should consider them. At $1 to $2 per square food, they will pay for themselves over time in the form of significant discounts from homeowner policies. For more details about that, contact your insurance agent!

Have an escape plan
All emergencies at home may require you to evacuate quickly, but when it comes to home fires, you might literally be seconds away from being trapped as the fire spreads. Every room should have two modes of escape. Spend time with children to make sure they knew these escape routes. They should also know to never hide from firefighters and to always test closed doors at the doorknob for heat. You'll want to have an all-purpose family emergency plan in addition to a family evacuation plan. The two go together, but if you are going to do one, it's not much trouble to the other.

Fire drill
Everyone remembers elementary school fire drills, but how many honestly have honestly done them at home? All of your planning might be all for naught if you suddenly discover that you forgot about those bars on the windows. Or maybe you forgot about your dogs and cats, and realize they are still inside after the drill.  Don’t be embarrassed if these things happen to you. The whole idea is to realize them so that you don’t figure these things out when a real fire engulfs your home!

A monthly fire drill will help you account for problems in your escape plan, it will also help you to shave off crucial seconds that may very well matter as you make it to safety.

In closing
Once you are out, stay out. There’s always something important you'll have left behind, but your life is worth more than anything you own. Even if you have a death wish, your dangerous act of going back in for any reason puts firefighters at risk. A homeowners policy is going to put things back, my friend. As long as you have an updated home inventory, your agent (and adjuster) will be able to help you set things right in the end.

As a survivor of a home fire, I can tell you that both my stepmother and my father went back inside, much to the displeasure of the volunteer fire department that put out the blaze.  My stepmother forgot her cat, and my father, his pager for work. I love cats as much as the next guy, and I can understand the loyalty to one’s occupation, but those selfish acts put the firefighters who were there to help us at added risk, and that’s just not acceptable.