So, you’ve got 10 year battery smoke alarms on the ceilings and a small fire extinguisher on each floor of your home. So, that’s you sorted, right?
Wrong! The US National Fire Protection Association discovered that in the past 10 years, more than 15 percent of all residential fire deaths, more than 29 percent of all injuries and approximately 30 percent of all residential fires were the direct result of kitchen fires. In the UK, 376 people died in domestic fires in 2005, and over 11,500 people were injured.
Protect Your Kitchen, Protect Your Home
Kitchen fire safety remains a concern for UK authorities. The latest Code of Practice BS 5839-6:2004 recommends a heat alarm in every Kitchen, and new Building regulations require new homes to have mains operated alarms. Yet, there is no requirement to fit any fire detection alarms in your existing kitchen.
Fire Safety: Kit Out Your Kitchen
Providing fire safety for your kitchen is really easy – and remarkably cost-efficient too, with just three steps to fire safety.
1. Feel the Heat
If you love to cook, you’ll know how a kitchen can quickly fill with steam, or hazy smoke from that lovely sizzling steak. Normal smoke alarms would be going crazy by now, which is why most new kitchen are fitted with a heat alarm instead.
A heat alarm only sounds when the temperature rises above 57 degrees C (135 degrees F), the temperature of a fire rather than just cooking.
2. Smother with Love
A fire blanket is just what you need to smother small fat fires in a frying pan, for example. Fire blankets work by excluding air from the fire, and extinguishing it.
If a pan catches fire, turn off the heat and immediately throw the blanket completely over the pan.
DO NOT MOVE THE PAN!
3. Fight the Fire
Your third essential item of kitchen fire safety kit is a 2k domestic fire extinguisher, such as an ABC multi-rated power extinguisher. This extinguisher is ideal for tackling fires NOT involving fats or electrics, such as a burning tea-towel or paper packaging.
Mount your handy fire extinguisher on a wall, so it’s easy to grab and use if and when you need it. If you have expensive electrical equipment in your kitchen, invest in a CO2 fire extinguisher as well, which will reduce any potential damage when sued on or near your electrical appliances.
So, keep safe in your kitchen this year, and may the only smoke be from your partner burning the toast – again.
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