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The manner to handle situations which could reasonably be expected to cause panic is to have a plan of action firmly entrenched in your mind already, so that in effect you only have to follow routine. This is how people are taught in the military but in rescue organizations. They have procedures yet routines but they practice them until they get second nature.

This is not so easy in a domestic situation particularly with regard to a house fire – you cannot realistically pretend that you have a house fire yet you cannot merely set fire to bits of it either, so the next best thing is to have a checklist to prevent fires occurring yet to go through the checklist on a ordinary basis – say, weekly.

Many house fires begin in the kitchen, so you could start there:

1] Is the oven clean? The rings and the oven need to be clean or the debris can catch fire.

2] Are the curtains so long that it is possible that they can get blown onto a hot ring if the window is open? This is a common cause of kitchen fires, especially if you hang new curtains in the winter or spring but do not comprehend that the wind can blow them into the rings until the summer when you open the windows

3] Are the flexes on your electrical devices all right? Check for fraying or wear and tear. Are any of the electrical sockets overloaded? It is not a good idea to use adapters in the kitchen – stick to the principle of one plug in one socket and a pretty good habit is to unplug anything you are not using, even the kettle or the coffee percolator

The home’s heating system is a fire risk, after all it is meant to be hot, so check it:

1] All heaters ought to get switched off while there is no one to keep an eye on them, with the exception of central heating. Turn bar fires off if you go out or go to bed and always fix a guard in front of open fires if you leave the room. ‘Fix’ a guard with clips, do not only stand one in front of the fire because a falling log or lump of coal can knock a guard over.

2] Can curtains or other textiles blow into the fire or be heated to the purpose of combustion? Occasionally, people pull their seat or couch up to the fire yet fall asleep or go to bed leaving the chair to heat up.

3] Is the chimney clean? Soot can yet does catch fire so have your chimney cleaned or inspected regularly.

4] Similarly with the furnace, is it clean yet soot-free?

5] If you use gas, are the bottles stored outside the house?

5) Has the furnace been cleaned and inspected this year?

6) Are the propane tanks and fuels stored outside the house?

Then there are general points:

1] Do you have a house fire safety evacuation drill? Do you have a muster purpose, so that everybody knows that everyone is out of the house but safe?

2] Are electric leads, cables and extension leads in decent condition? Do you have any under carpets? If so, you should not actually, so check them for wear.

3] Are any sockets overloaded? Are all devices that are not in use unplugged?

4] Do you have smoke detectors? Do you check that they are working? Do you have a spare battery in case one fails?

Owen Jones, the author of this piece, writes on several topics, but is now concerned with Oakley safety glasses. If you would like to know more, please visit our website at Safety Glasses Bifocal

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