DIY Home Health and Safety
Protecting Your Home From Smoke, Gas, And Fire
Every year, more than 4,000 people in the United States are killed in a fire and more than 400 of them are children under the age of 10. More than 20,000 people are injured in residential fires each year.
The real tragedy in these numbers is that nearly all of these deaths and injuries are preventable. By making fire safety a priority, you can protect your home and your family from the ravages of fire and smoke. Knowing how to prevent a fire and knowing what to do when a fire breaks out can mean the difference between life and death for you and your loved ones.
Causes and Symptoms of Chronic Pelvic Pain
Many different conditions can cause chronic pelvic pain. You may have one or more of them. All can have similar symptoms, and that often makes it hard to figure out the source of the pain. The main symptom is pain that lasts for more than six months, but there are usually other symptoms as well. Understanding your symptoms can help you and your doctor begin to pinpoint the cause or causes of your chronic pelvic pain. Here are some of the causes and the related symptoms:
Read the Causes and Symptoms of Chronic Pelvic Pain article > >
Fire Safety: How Can I Protect My Family?
There are two vital steps you can take right now to significantly reduce your family’s risk of dying or being injured if a fire breaks out in your home:
- Develop and have everyone routinely practice an escape plan
- Install and make sure you properly maintain smoke alarms
Getting out of the house fast is essential, but you have very little time to react. A small flame can turn into an out-of-control fire in less than 30 seconds. And within a matter of minutes, your entire home can be engulfed in flames and toxic smoke.
Fatal fires often start late at night or early in the morning when people are asleep. Properly working smoke alarms can wake the entire family while there is still time to get out of the house. Nearly 65% of home fire fatalities between 2000 and 2004 happened in homes with no smoke alarms or where the smoke alarms weren’t working.
But once people in your home are aware of the fire, they also need to know what to do. The environment created by a fire is confusing, disorienting, and potentially deadly. Creating and practicing an escape plan will help everyone, including children, stay focused on what they need to do to get out.
Fire Safety: Creating an Escape Plan
The goal of an escape plan is to make sure everyone can get out of the house as quickly as possible in the event of a fire. You can use paper to create a floor plan of your house and then decide the best way to exit each room. Be sure to pick two exits from each room -- a primary exit that would be the most direct way out of the house, and an alternative exit in case the main one is blocked by fire.
For instance, you might choose a window that can be climbed out of as a backup exit. A room that’s on an upper floor should have a collapsible ladder that can be used for a window exit if there is no other way down and the main escape is blocked. Any security bars on windows and doors should have a quick release device and everyone should know how to remove the bars quickly.
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