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Fire Prevention and Safety
A Quick and Easy Guide to Home Fire Sprinklers
Fire kills more Americans than all natural disasters combined. Every year more than 5,000 people die in fires, over 25,000 are injured, and direct property loss is estimated at over $9 billion. Fortunately, most fire losses can be prevented through effective public education and awareness initiatives. Many Americans believe "fires can only happen to other people - not to me and not in my home." Yet, over 80 percent of fire deaths occur in the home, most often claiming the lives of the young, the elderly and the disadvantaged. Each year, there are an estimated 405,000 fires in residential structures, which cause nearly 3,600 fatalities, 18,600 injuries and $4.7 billion in property loss. Given the enormity of the US fire problem, fire service and public health experts are constantly seeking programs/devices that will reduce the number of lives lost and property destroyed by fire. *US Fire Administration - Dec. 2001 The total cost of fire to society is staggering - over $182 billion per year. This includes the cost of adding fire protection to buildings, the cost of paid fire departments, the equivalent cost of volunteer fire departments, the cost of insurance overhead, the direct cost of fire-related losses, the medical cost of fire injuries, and other direct and indirect costs. Even if this estimate is overstated by as much as 100 percent, the total cost of fire would range from approximately $90 to $182 billion, still enormous, and on the order of 1 to 2 percent of the grossdomestic product, which was $13.8 trillion in 2007. Thus, from an economicviewpoint, fire ranks as a significant national problem.
Fire prevention starts in the home! Set a good example for your children. |
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Our mission is to ensure the safety of our community through education and intervention. We achieve this by understanding the importance of community involvement and awareness of safe practices in the home and the work place. Every year our Company spends countless hours on training our members to be ambassadors of good fire prevention practices. We give tours of the firehouse to organizations like the boy scouts, girls scouts, brownie troops, daycares, and elementary school children. During the customized tours, the children learn many different things that could help them at their specific age level. We teach them skills like dialing 911, controlling bleeding, deciding what is a real emergency, and the importance of fresh batteries in all smoke and carbon monoxide detectors. We take our engine or ladder truck to the schools and daycares in the area, spray water, and teach them fire extinguisher use and safety. Together, we all have made a difference. Education is the key to safety. We wear seatbelts in our cars, we place children in the back seat, we know the importance of functioning smoke and carbon monoxide detectors, and why we "stop - drop & roll". All of these life saving messages have been made possible through education and enforcement.
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