Blog About Safety

Fire Prevention Week, October 4-10, 2009

Do you know how Fire Prevention Week started? It was started to commemorate the Great Chicago Fire in 1871. Because of that, fire prevention week is always on the week surrounding October 9. There were other very large fires that week, including the Peshtigo Fire in Northern Wisconsin.

The Peshtigo Fire was the worst forest fire in US history.

What we can do now is think about fire safety and prevention. Fire and burn safety tips should be always on our mind. Here are a few tips we should always remember.

• Practice kitchen fire safety
  • Don’t wear loose clothing around the stove
  • Don’t place flammable items near the stove – even if it is an electric or pilotless stove.
  • Don’t leave pan handles hanging over the floor where they can be bumped.
  • Handle pots and pans with oven mits
  • Watch the steam! Steam burns can be very serious.
• Fire safety around your clothes dryer
  • Don’t keep any clothes or flammable items near the pilot of the dryer.
• Smoking
  • Don’t smoke in bed
  • Don’t smoke when you are tired
  • Smoke outside (that will keep you awake and away from flammable items in the house)
• Electricity
  • How is the wiring in your house? Up-to-date?
  • Don’t plug to many things in the same place.
• Candle Safety
  • Stay in the room where candles are burning

Do you have sprinklers installed in your home? Do you have a fire extinguisher?

These are just a few tips that barely scratch the surface of fire safety. There are many more tips that we should be thinking about.

Please add your comments and suggestions for fire safety.

Scientists believe that 80% of disease is spread by not enough or improper hand washing. 80% is a huge number in my opinion. That also suggests how much we can prevent by thorough hand washing. I would much rather see disease prevention, so it would be great to see everyone washing their hands very thoroughly and frequently. My skin is very dry, so I have hand lotion with me all the time to put on my hands after washing. I also carry hand sanitizer as an extra precaution.

I’ve also heard people question some things like shaking hands. Should we bow when greeting someone rather than shaking hands? Something like that would take a long time for people to change. Even if that did change, that is not the only way the germs spread. We sneeze or cough, cover our mouth with our hand, then open a door to go in or out. That is one small example out of the many items we touch daily. Not shaking hands is not enough of an answer. Washing our hands more often and more thoroughly is.

The CDC has a video that shows the importance of hand washing here.