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Fire Safety Tips - a salutary tale.

On Saturday night we went to bed having made the usual household checks. Switched off the lights, locked the doors and blown out the candles.

At about 6:00am the dog started barking. Nothing particularly unusual in that, so we thought. She has been playing up quite a lot lately - and it was probably a cry for attention. Her barking stopped. We went back to sleep.

At about 7:00am the an alarm clock went off. My husband and I sighed, we were really looking forward to a lie in and it just seemed to be one thing after another.

After about a minute we both became aware it wasn't the alarm clock at all. It was the fire alarm. And it was still going.

Our immediate thought was that one of the kids had been downstairs and managed to burn the toast. This has happened several times before.

The alarm persisted and it was only then I thought there might possibly be a problem.

I threw my dressing gown on and rushed out onto the landing. Immediately I could smell smoke. I ran downstairs wondering what to expect and shouting FIRE GET UP at the top of my voice.

When I reached the bottom of the stairs I could see the problem. A dried flower arrangement which was housing a candle was on fire on the window sill. The flames were about eighteen inches high. And burning foliage was turning to molten ash and drifting all over the room.

The thick black smoke - just from this one item in flames made it dificult to breathe and even to see.

Fortunately the flames had not reached the curtains or the sofa and I realised I had probably a minute or so before they did. So my thought was to try and contain the fire by throwing a wet tea towel over it. If that did not work dial 999.

I rushed to the kitchen grabbed a tea towel and dowsed it with water. I ran back to the lounge breathing a sign of relief that the curtains or sofa had not yet caught fire.

It was only then that my husband finely appeared. He had run down the stairs naked and then run back upstairs to make himself decent! The kids appeared just about the same time.

Finally after another wet tea towel was thrown on this mini molten inferno my husband managed to throw the offending article - which was still on fire out of the window.

Half an hour later we sat down and thought how lucky we were. Thank goodness we had a working fire alarm. It also made us think about our reaction to the situation.

Of course the candle should have been checked before we went to bed. But the thing that worried me the most, was how many times I had to shout fire before everyone appeared. Now I maybe only talking a matter of seconds, but when you are dealing with fire it is the seconds which count.

How much more damage would have been done if my husband and I had debated who was going to go downstairs to investigate? Another minute or two.....it does not bare thinking about.

That fire alarm saved our home and possibly our lives.

Labels: candles and fire, fire prevention, fire safety, fire safety tips

posted by Diana and Steve @ 13:02