Are You Prepared For A Fire?
Have you ever wondered what your personal risk of fire is over your lifetime?
Chances Are You Will Have A Fire
- Number of home fires your household can expect in an average lifetime: 5
- Chances your household will have a reported home fire in an average lifetime: 1 in 4
- Chances that someone in your household will suffer a fire injury in an average lifetime: 1 in 10
- Chances that someone in your household will suffer an injury in a reported fire in an average lifetime: 1 in 89
Households can expect to average a home fire every 15 years or five fires in an average lifetime. (Life expectancy now averages 78 years in the U.S., according to the Statistical Abstract.) That is one of the results of the latest survey of unreported fires, conducted by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission in 2004-2005, when combined with NFPA’s annual tracking of reported fires.
Most of these will be small fires resulting in little or no damage and will not be reported to a fire department, but even a trivial fire causes at least some temporary anxiety.
Likelihood Of Reportable Household Fire
- Your household has a one in four chance of having a home fire large enough to be reported to a fire department during an average lifetime.
- Someone in your household also has a one in ten chance of suffering a fire injury in a home fire an average lifetime. More likely than not, this will be a minor injury suffered in a fire that you did not report to the fire department. You might not even remember the injury a month after it happened.
- About one out of nine of these injuries will occur in a reported home fire, which means someone in your household has a one in 89 chance of suffering a fire injury in a reported home fire in an average lifetime.
The Good News About Home Fire Safety
Overall, the 10-year trend in the fire death rate per million population decreased 21 percent from 2001-2010. This is in part due to the declining US population and an increase in education about fire protection services and more robust fire alarm systems overall.
Fire Safety: Education Is Key
Soon, when school is back in session, fire departments will employ teams to visit area schools to educate our children on the importance of fire safety, but that might not be soon enough for some families.
Fire safety should be a topic of conversation all year long. It’s critical for parents to be aware of fire safety as it relates to keeping families safe at home. This info-graphic from Safe Kids serves as a great reminder to develop a home evacuation plan should a fire emergency arise.
Fire safety begins with a working smoke detector. They do save lives. Monitored smoke detectors provide the added benefit of sending signals to the fire department for quick deployment of help. For more information regarding alarm and fire protection services, click the link below, or contact us for a free fire and security evaluation for your home.
