Fire Prevention is one of the most important issues that Shavers Fork Fire Rescue tries to promote to the surrounding community.

Here are a few ways that you can practice Fire Prevention:

• Know Your Escape Plan
  • It is important that if there is an emergency that everyone in your home or business know where to go outside of the building. A central meeting place is key to knowing if everyone is out of that dangerous environment
• Appoint a Safety Manager
  • Select someone responsible from your family or business to make sure that everyone is accounted for and that everyone is clear from your building…even if it is a fire alarm. Something set off that fire alarm…it did not just go off by itself.
• Extension cords
  • Start using low gauge (thicker) extension cords and do away with the thin brown, white and green cords that you can buy. These types of cords can handle the electricity and do not heat up as fast
• Plug Strips
  • DO NOT CONNECT PLUG STRIPS. Plug strips have an internal breaker which supports the items you have plugged in. One main cause of fire is from plugging plug strips into one another.
• Baseboard Heaters
  • Make sure that all soft furniture, blankets and any type of low hanging drapery are clear of base board heaters. These heaters produce a radiant heat that can ignite anything that heats up enough.
• Smoke Detectors
  • VERY IMPORTANT. Make sure that all your smoke detectors are working properly and make sure that you change the batteries in your smoke detector every six (6) months. One way to remember this is…WHEN YOU CHANGE YOUR CLOCK, CHANGE YOUR SMOKE DETECTOR BATTERY!
• Fire Extinguishers
  • Make sure that you have plenty of fire extinguishers in your house…especially where fires can start…heating units that use a pilot light, kitchens and near your electrical wall boxes.
  • It is always good to have a fire extinguisher in your bedroom, in case you have to fight your way to a safe place. CLASS ABC fire extinguishers are the ones that you should buy. The work on electrical, combustible (wood/paper), and fuels like oil and gasoline.

Each year Shavers Fork Fire Rescue plans fire prevention activities during Fire Prevention Week. This past year, the theme for Fire Prevention Week was “Practice Your Escape Plan.”

Shavers Fork invited the community to Station 4 during the Week of October 8^th to participate in activities focused on fire prevention. We kicked off the week with a sausage gravy & biscuit breakfast and followed up by two days of FREE CPR classes and a day at the station to see exactly what fire departments do. SFFR handed out batteries for smoke detectors and brochures on how to make family homes and local businesses safer for everyone.