It’s Fire Prevention Week: Prevent Home Fires

The National Fire Protection Association kicks off Fire Prevention Week today. Well, yesterday. But in my world, weeks start on Monday. All the same, October 5-11 is a time this year for you to concentrate on how to “Prevent Home Fires,” which is this year’s theme.

An important theme, don’t you think? Especially when you take into account the number of fires in general that took place in 2007. Of the 1,557,500 (reported/big/etc) fires in 2007, 414,000 were in homes like yours and mine. Furthermore, in seventeen of those house fires, five or more people died. We don’t have five people living in our home. But we do have people who visit. Do you want to become a Catastrophic Multiple-Death Fire statistic? I don’t.

I’ll be writing a post each day this week about home fire safety. (Including a post about Fire Pup, from our Fire Department, visiting BigBrother’s preschool on Thursday. I’ll have the insider view, even though I won’t be there, as rumor on the street is that the guy inside the costume is someone we all know and love.) In the meantime, you need to take some time this week to read the Fire Prevention Week 2008 blog. And you need to start asking yourself if your family is prepared (as you can be) in the event of a house fire. My guess is that, no, you are not. Because a certain fire family that you know and love, ahem, could probably put a little work into their own home safety this week. Not naming any names.

If you have any fire related questions regarding home safety that you haven’t wanted to hijack a post in the comments with, please feel free to ask it now. I’ll try to address it this week as we focus on the importance of fire safety.

Pass the word on. Preventing home fires is never a bad thing.

(Of note: Photos of the house fire are from the 2007 county fire school burn that I shot. Not a “real” house fire.)