Articles Posted in Fire Prevention and Safety

On August 5 in a small Ohio town, a 64-year-old woman died after a fire started in her apartment within an 11-story senior apartment complex.

The woman lived in a seventh-floor apartment, where investigators believe the fire originated from a candle in the living room. Firefighter responded at 10:38 p.m. after the building’s fire alarm went off. When engines arrived, there was smoke visibly coming from the seventh floor. The fire was contained to the woman’s apartment and was knocked down quickly. Firefighters found the unconscious woman in the apartment and carried her down a ladder, witnesses said. “It’s very tragic. The guys are pretty broken up about it,” said the fire department’s chief.

An autopsy determined that the woman died of smoke inhalation. What’s more, numerous other residents of the senior complex were treated at the scene for smoke inhalation, with a few taken to a hospital. The American Red Cross found shelter for up to 30 other seventh-floor residents displaced by the fire. But many stayed with relatives instead.

In Nashua, NH in mid-August, a 48-year-old man was transported to a hospital following an unusual incident. It seems that a fire broke out not in his apartment, but rather just outside the entryway to his apartment, around 11 p.m. By the time firefighters arrived, the fire had been partially extinguished by residents. Furthermore, the fire was extinguished even before it could spread beyond the entryway.

Nonetheless, the man was trapped in his apartment because there was only one door that led outside, and the fire in that doorway caused smoke to fill his apartment, resulting in the man suffering poisonous smoke inhalation.

In any situation where there is only one door out of a building, windows should be considered as alternate fire escape routes, and rope ladders or some other means of getting out that window and onto the ground should be stored within reach of that window. Also, all occupants of a dwelling–including children–should know about these alternate escape routes and how to use the nearby items to get out of windows safely in case the doors are blocked by fire or smoke.

Do you know how easy it is to risk your life in a public place? Well, if you don’t think about what you will do in case of fire when you are in a public place, then it is very easy to risk your life.

The stories below provide perfect examples of how close you can come to being killed by third-degree burns or smoke inhalation in just a few minutes.

On July 11, at least two people were transported to local hospitals for smoke inhalation following a four-alarm fire that struck a Days Inn hotel just outside Baltimore, MD. According to a Baltimore County Fire Department spokesperson, the fire was initially reported at 8:14 p.m. But guests who had been staying at the hotel say that fire alarms had gone off as much as an hour earlier–many people did not know there was a true emergency until they encountered heavy smoke filling the hallways.

In early July in upstate New York, a 48-year-old Yates County man was seriously burned when a tractor-trailer caught fire while he was fueling it. The local newspaper reported that James Moore of Dundee was flown to the Kessler Burn and Trauma Center at Strong Memorial Hospital in Rochester after the accident in the town of Benton. The hospital listed him in satisfactory condition hours after he was admitted, which was lucky for Moore.

Sheriff’s deputies say Moore was pumping fuel into the big truck when the passenger side he was standing on caught fire. Moore suffered severe burns to his head, face, neck, chest and arms. Firefighters from two departments quickly extinguished the fire.

While the cause of the fire was not immediately determined, this incident provides a memorable lesson for everyone: Some of the most routine things we must do each day can pose a fire hazard, or cause a second-degree or even a life-threatening third-degree burn. Here are just a few examples:

In my blog post of July 5, I wrote about a restaurant fire that was caused by careless preparation by a waiter of a dessert that uses fire for visual effect. The result was two burned patrons, with one of them suffering serious third-degree burns.

But even at home, many tasks involved in cooking can be very dangerous, and you must pay attention to safety whenever you are using heat in the kitchen. Consider this: Back in late May, a man in Granby, NY, was seriously burned when he tossed meat into a hot pan. The local fire chief said that the man simply made an absent-minded decision to toss the meat into the pan from a foot or so away, and this caused a flare-up of flames that engulfed him. The man was rushed to Upstate University Hospital in Syracuse with second- and third-degree burns to his face, hands, arms and back.

Then in mid-June, a Las Vegas woman was treated for smoke inhalation and a firefighter suffered a minor injury during a kitchen fire that caused $75,000 in damage. Firefighters responded to a townhouse complex to fight this fire, which started after the woman put a pan of cooking oil on the stove top to heat up, but then got distracted by a phone call.

Last week, I wrote a blog that covered the new fire hazards that are part of everyday life because of new technology and products being sold to the public. Well, a perfect example of this popped up this week:

On June 21, Farmington, NH high-school students trying to complete final exams were interrupted when an iPod battery exploded in a classroom. To avoid smoke inhalation, the classroom was evacuated and the school locked down for a short period.

The local TV station reported that a 16-year-old boy was responsible for the situation, because he repeatedly bent his iPod music player, which caused it to malfunction. The boy bent the iPod so many times that the gadget’s plastic casing broke open, but he continued to flex the broken case anyway. Soon thereafter, this caused the lithium-ion battery to emit smoke and sparks. The boy dropped the iPod on the classroom’s tile floor and poured water on the device to put out the fire.