Where Fires Might Start in Your Home | SERVPRO of Marietta West

11/9/2021 (Permalink)

Regardless of the cause, SERVPRO of Marietta West is here for you if your home is affected by fire.

Fires happen all over the place. Some are wild, started by lightning. Some are commercial, due to mishaps in the workplace or other factors. And yet others happen on the home front—in fact, more than 25% of all reported fires, and over 75% of fire-related casualties, occur at home.

So where are the places fires might ignite at home? Look through this list and see if you find any places you can exercise a little more caution at home and prevent some potential problems.

| Cooking | Drop a coin on the table, and the odds are even that it’ll land on either heads or tails. Tell a firefighter a fire happened at your home, and they’ll give you the same odds that it started in your kitchen. Half of all home fires start there, and the most common reason is unattended cooking. Simply paying attention while you prepare dinner will drastically reduce your home’s fire risk.

| Heating Equipment | It only makes sense to imagine that the increased use of heating equipment and fireplaces during colder months could lead to a rise in home blazes—it’s a statistical probability. But you can mitigate your risk by being careful with your heat sources. Keep anything flammable at least three feet from any source of heat. Don’t leave portable space heaters on when you go to sleep or leave the room.

| Electrical Fires | Electricity presents a kind of automatic fire risk, but you can do your part in keeping it from becoming an acute danger. Regularly let a professional inspect, maintain or upgrade your wiring and electrical systems as needed. Don’t overuse or misuse extension cords, plug items into loose or sparky outlets, or overload lighting installations with high-watt bulbs.

| Intentional Fires | You’d think humanity might have evolved beyond it, but apparently not: Around 28,000 intentional home fires happen each year, due to direct misuse of heating elements to cause damage to a piece of property.

| Smoking Materials | Smoking in bed, or smoking while otherwise drowsy or impaired, leads to a very sad statistic. Though these types of fires account for only 5% of total home fires, they directly cause almost a quarter of all civilian fire deaths.

Some simple safety measures can prevent dangerous, even deadly, scenarios at home. Every month is fire safety month.

*Regardless of the cause, SERVPRO of Marietta West is here for you if your home is affected by fire and smoke damage. Contact your locally owned SERVPRO team, SERVPRO of Marietta West today at (770) 428-5467 for immediate service or visit www.SERVPROmariettawest.com to see how we can help.