Three Deadly Misconceptions About House Fires That Can Kill You!
Most experts agree that, to one degree or another
, we all have these misconceptions about home fires that represent the reasons we do not take action to adopt fire safety precautions. Taking action is the only way we can reduce or eliminate our chances of death or injury from this terrible killer and crippler. Learn these and save the lives of your family.
Misconception 1: It Will Not Happen To Me
Not believing a home fire will happen is why the U.S. has the highest death rate in the industrialized world. There are as many as two million reported home fires annually and many more are unreported. It is estimated that Americans experience as many as 5400 home fires per day, which is the equivalent of a fire every 12 seconds happening to someone, somewhere.
According to the 2010 NFPA, it is estimated that each household will experience three (usually unreported) home fires per decade and two fires serious enough to report to a fire department per lifetime. Think about it, our fire problem is not what is used to be. We are not only having a fire problem, most of us are making it worse!
Do you have more or less electronic gadgets in your home today than you did when you where a child? You said a lot more, right? The majority of all fires are electrical in nature and everything we have that is plugged in is now part of our electrical system. With all the electronics, computers and chargers we have in use today, it is hard to find an empty outlet in many rooms of our homes. Plus, there are 3 times more candle fires than there were just 15 years ago.
Our everyday appliances are being recalled by the millions because of fire hazards. Did you know that according to the CPSC, over 4.5 million dishwashers have been recalled in the last 10 years because of fire-related problems? Most of them have not yet been repaired and many can cause a fire even if you do not use them! Are you sure you do not have one of over 1000 products that have had fire-related recalls in the past 10 years in your home?
Misconception 2: There Is Plenty Of Time To Escape
A lucky few escape home fires every day, but many do not! Here is what happens. Fire needs oxygen to burn, right? The second that fire starts, it begins to consume oxygen from our home. Normal air that we breathe is 21% oxygen. When it is lowered to only 17%, we become disoriented and it is difficult to get out. When it reaches 14% we are put into a deep sleep that few can be woken from without physically carrying them out.
The NFPA says that we have as little as 1 or 2 minutes to escape. The NIST has proven that a flaming fire doubles in size every 8 seconds. That means that a fire the size of a match head will reach our ceiling in as little as 72 seconds! In a test fire videoed by the NFPA, a test fire exploded from 400 degrees to over 1000 degrees in only 20 seconds! No one can outrun that type of fire.
If you do not know about a fire like this immediately, will you have time to get out? Can you get your entire family out of your home in 60 seconds? Even if you think you can, most of us cannot tell the difference between 2 minutes and 2 hours when we are sound asleep.
Misconception 3: It Is Only Large Fires That Kill
Any fire can be deadly and thankfully we rarely die from flames. Most people are gone before the flames get to them, so even a small fire can be deadly before we know about it. According to FEMA, most people die from asphyxiation, which is simply a lack of oxygen. It just makes sense once we realize how fast a fire consumes the air we are trying to breathe. And there are other ways that fire can kill:
Super-heated air: one breath of only 400 degree heat will drop a grown man in his tracks almost instantly! Smoke inhalation: certainly we know that most fires are building up a blinding amount of smoke that not only makes it difficult or impossible to breathe, but it also makes escape very difficult, because it is absolute pitch black.
Toxic gases: almost everything we have in our home today is made of synthetic, manmade materials and petroleum based products that produce hundreds of deadly gasses.
Follow these precautions, take action, and your loved ones will be much more likely to survive a home fire. Better yet, your home will be much safer from having one.
by: Bill Driscoll
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