Fire Safety Tips for Parents
freedigitalphotos.net
Fire safety is an important practice for every household. There are several basic fire safety rules that practically everyone knows, but fire safety is a different story for parents. Children change many aspects of fire safety for your home. It’s your responsibility to not only protect your children from the threat of fire, but to also arm them with the knowledge and skills to practice good fire safety.
Keeping Children Away from Fire Hazards
Lighters, matches, lanterns, stoves, gasoline and more can easily create house fires in mere moments. Keep lighters, matches and other common household items that can spark flames out of a child’s reach. High cabinets and locked pantries are good storage methods for these items. Flammable liquids such as gasoline should be locked in a garage, shed or lockable storage cabinet.
Candle Safety
People use candles for power outages, birthdays, ambiance and more, so it may be difficult to keep children away from candles. However, they should fully understand that candles should be handled with care. Keep lit candles away from children and ensure that they understand not to play around or with candles.
Teach Them about Basic Fire Safety
Knowledge is one of your greatest allies when dealing with fire safety. One of the best ways to keep your children safe from fire hazards is by arming them with the essential knowledge of how to avoid fires and how to handle them if they should occur. Show them the locations of all of the fire extinguishers in the house. Teach them how to use a fire extinguisher. Teach them proper methods of handling potential fire hazards, and tell them that they should always have a parent or other responsible adult around when handling these materials. Ensure that they realize that fire is extremely dangerous and could be deadly if handled incorrectly. Any helpful fire safety hints that you know can be useful to your child.
It’s a good idea to instill these lessons in your child as early as possible. Young children tend to be very curious about fire, so it’s best to teach them before they decide to try to experiment with it on their own.
Fire Escape Plans
Every house needs an escape plan in the event of a fire. If you don’t have one now, it’s a good time to make one. Everyone in the house, including children, should be well-versed in the escape plan as well as what to do while escaping. Teach them how to feel the door for heat, stuff a sheet under the door to keep smoke from getting in, stay low to the ground to avoid inhaling smoke and to calmly find the designated escape route. In addition, establish a meeting area in advance to ensure that everybody accounted for in the event of a fire.
Have Regular Fire Drills
To ensure that your children understand what to do in the event of a fire and to keep the plan fresh in their minds, hold regular fire drills to practice the escape plan.
It takes teamwork between parents and children to achieve good fire safety. With the right skills and knowledge in your hands, you and your children can handle fire safety with ease.
Ashley Madison is a blogger for Essential Fire Safety.
