Counter-intuitively and therefore surprisingly, the focal ‘points of fire safety’ are different for different people. Environmentalists, loving parents, managers, park rangers, landlords, and homeowners all see ‘the point of fire safety’ in slightly different ways. Nonetheless, they have in common both certain points and the single point of all of them: protection of what they value.
Certain Safety Points in Common
Regardless of whom is making them, certain points are stressed in every discussion of fire safety. Among them is the need to:
- take extraordinary precautions with respect to children big and small
- understand the proper way to extinguish different types of fire
- have appropriate extinguishers and alarms
- incorporate fire resistance measures in areas surrounding likely fire sources
- provide safe storage for flammables
There are many others, but too much information can simply overwhelm, and these points should be helpful.
Being prepared to put out both accidental and built fires is essential to fire safety. In every case, the ability of air to reach the fire has to be shut down, but the other fuel for the fire calls for different ‘extinguishers’. A grease fire may be stoppable with flour and a lid, but that is not the best approach to a stack of papers on fire.
Flammables, which include paper, wood, and common liquids as well as those intended to be accelerants, require safe storage. That is as true indoors as out – whether back yard or campground, office or home. Unprotected, whether they are for the printer, fireplace, or campfire, things that can ignite should not be near a source of fire.
The Single Point Of All
Whatever it is they are protecting, the single point of safety measures is to prevent harm from fire. This is surely nowhere more important than at home, and its truth only increases with children. Since “faulty systems” are to blame in a huge number of fires wherever they occur, please involve professionals in the proper maintenance of yours.