Fire safety at home

Fire safety at home

Is your house fitted with smoke detectors?

Smoke detectors have two parts. One is a sensor that works when smoke or heat enters a room or the space near the detector. The second part is an alarm that sounds whenever the detector senses the smoke or heat. The sound of the alarm will warn you of danger. Smoke detectors should be in place near the bedrooms of your house, and in, or near the kitchen.

Find out how to test the smoke detectors in your house. Remember, the batteries that make the smoke detector work, must be changed once each year.

A fire escape plan is a plan that tells everyone who lives in the house what to do if a fire starts.

If your house catches fire, get out of the house. Don't hide! Go outside!

A family fire escape plan lets everyone know at least two ways to get out of the house. If one way is blocked, people can go an other way to get to safety.

When you are leaving a burning house, use the back of your hand to find out if a door is hot before you open it. A hot door means that there could be fire behind it. If a door is hot, go another way!

The fire escape plan should name a meeting place where everybody should meet. It could be at the mailbox, or near a big tree, or another place your family has chosen.

If someone is missing, tell the firefighters. They have clothing and equipment to safely enter the house to look for missing people. Never go back into the burning house

When leaving the house, remember to stay low to the floor. The air is cooler down low, and the smoke will be thinner so it will be easier to breathe.

If your clothes catch fire, stop, drop and roll. Rolling will smother the fire and put it out. call for help, but don't run. Running will make the fire burn faster.

Know the emergency telephone number for your area. In Australia the emergency number is 000. Find out the number for where you live.

Go here for some more information about fire safety www.sproutonline.com/sprout/Originals/FireSafety.aspx

Go here to find out how smoke detectors work http://www.howstuffworks.com/smoke.htm

Go here for the kidcyber page about firefighters
http://www.kidcyber.com.au/topics/firefighters.htm

If you use any of this information in your own work acknowledge this source in your bibliography like this:
Thomas, R. & Sydenham, S. Fire safety at home [Online] www.kidcyber.com.au (2009)