Smoke Damage, Halloween & Fall 2022 Weather Fire Safety
Preventing Fire & Smoke Damage This Halloween and Fall Season
As temperatures begin to drop in northeastern Ohio, it’s easy to get excited about decorating your home for Halloween and spending the last few nights of decent weather outside with friends and family. But taking part in these fall festivities can sometimes involve open flames. Although having bonfires or carving pumpkins is fun and exciting, if done improperly, serious damage can occur. There are a few ways you can prevent fire and smoke damage to your property and personal belongings, as long as you’re willing to go through a short, but extremely effective list of dos and don’ts of seasonal fire safety. Should a fire happen on your property and cause smoke damage to your belongings, Trident Restoration, a reliable fire restoration company is just around the corner, serving the Akron, Canton, Tallmadge, and Medina areas during these destructive moments.
Decorations
Among the various types of decorations, candles are one of the common reasons leading to a house fire starts. After you and your children or friends have finished carving a spooky face or design out of a pumpkin, placing a small candle inside the cavity is only customary. Although a candle adds extra spookiness to your design, it also adds an element of potential danger. The flame may seem safe inside the pumpkin, but outside objects like corn stalks, dried or artificial flowers, crepe paper, and other flammable decorations can quickly catch fire if placed in close proximity to a flame. Keeping these flammable decorations away from other heat sources like a space heater or light bulb is also something to keep in mind. Placing decorations in front of any exit is not recommended, as they can pose extreme danger in the case of a fire. Indoor fall-scented candles are also among some of the favorite types of decorations to come out of storage during this time of year. According to the National Fire Protection Association, 8,200 home fires start from candles each year. So, practicing candle safety will ensure that you won’t have to call an emergency fire response team, Like Trident Restoration, to assess the crisis.
Bonfires
As nights become longer and cooler, time spent around an open bonfire increases among residents living in Ohio. Although warm and cozy, a bonfire that isn’t well tended to or planned can cause destruction and pose a threat to properties and people. When planning for a bonfire, you should check the weather first and practice the following precautions;
- Never have a bonfire when the radar calls for high wind. The wind can quickly spread a fire and help it to grow faster than you might be able to keep up with.
- As an added safeguard, you should have a bonfire far away from any structure. Ten to twenty-five feet away from a house or other structure is optimal.
- When starting a bonfire, you should always use dry, seasoned wood that was chopped and prepared at least six months prior.
- Never use gasoline or lighter fluid to start the fire.
- Stacking the wood in a tee-pee shape is ideal so that things aren’t susceptible to falling out of the burning stack.
- To put out a fire, use sand or water, and in some cases, keeping a fire extinguisher nearby might not be a bad idea.
- Never leave a fire unattended. If you’re ready to call it a night and head inside, place your hand a foot above the remaining embers and ash, and if you feel any heat radiating whatsoever, it’s unsafe to walk away for the night. Place dirt, sand, or water on the fire to safely put it out.
Smoke Detectors
This is a great time to test all the smoke detectors in your home. You will probably be spending more time indoors this time of the year, so you’re going to be very dependent on your smoke detectors. Checking your smoke detectors early in the season will help you prepare for the colder winter months as well. Smoke detectors will help you identify smoke from a fire and can, in turn, save your house from serious smoke damage, which can in turn lead to large sums of smoke remediation and cleaning costs. If you hear a consistent beep coming from your smoke detectors, it means your battery is running low. Rather than removing the battery completely and leaving the detector without a source of energy, you should replace the battery. What good is a smoke detector without a battery in it anyway?
How Trident Restoration Can Help After A Fire
Following the safety tips from above can prevent a dangerous fire from starting, but unfortunately, they’re still inevitable. If a fire and resulting smoke damage occurs on your property causing damages and smoke odors throughout your home and you’re unsure of your next steps, Trident Restoration can provide fire restoration services and effective smoke odor removal and cleaning to you and can be a huge help in reducing the amount of stress that goes into handling this major problem. Trident Restoration IICRC certified professionals will arrive quickly 24 hours a day 7 days a week to perform emergency smoke damage restoration.
Trident Restoration specializes in fire and smoke damage cleanup, and the insurance claims process so they’ll guide you along the way and steer you in the right direction.
