If you’ve been fortunate enough to avoid a house fire, then you may not understand just how devastating they are. You also might not know just how often fires happen.

To put things into perspective, the U.S. experienced more than 1.3 million fires in 2018. That’s more than 3,500 fires occurring every day, which means that your house might be at risk as well.  

Fires are extremely costly, disrupting, dangerous, and destroy your place of comfort. In the best of scenarios, the only damage is to your property and your family escapes injury-free. 

Something to keep in mind is that most fires are avoidable. This comes down to fireproofing your home to ensure that the risk of a fire is low and that one will be manageable should it happen. 

Below we have a few great tips to help you fireproof your home and keep your loved ones safe! 

Limit Clutter

The first thing you’ll want to do is to limit any clutter found around your home. You can view this as anything unnecessary that is accumulating or taking up space. 

Clutter is the bane of organization. Whether you have piles of clothing along your stairs or stacks up paper all over your desk, clutter can build up quickly. 

To minimize the amount of clutter in your home, pick up loose toys when your children or pets are done playing with them. Make sure to regularly pick up debris found around the house as well. 

The best way to limit clutter is to immediately pick up after yourself. You should understand where everything belongs and make sure that you put things back when you’re done with them. 

If there’s a fire in your house, clutter will expedite the spread of the flames. The cluttered items will act as fuel for the fire, which gives you less time to get out safely. 

Eliminate Hazards

Next, you should take some time to eliminate potential fire hazards. You can view this as anything that can cause a fire. 

A perfect example of this is dryer lint. Many people forget to empty their dryer’s lint trap, which can cause an excess of lint. This is flammable and will lead to a fire if it gets too hot. 

Another common household fire hazard is unattended candles. Children can easily bump into candles, knocking them over and potentially spreading the flame to something flammable. 

Many items in your house can catch fire in the wrong circumstances. Especially with children, you can never be sure that something won’t go astray!

Think about the items in your house and what might potentially catch on fire. Minimize the chance of this happening by taking precautionary measures.

Avoid Overloading Outlets

Another helpful practice is to avoid overloading your power outlets. Not everyone thinks of outlets as causing house fires, but they happen more often than you’d think.

The most common outlet-related fire happens when there are too many power sources plugged into one outlet. Even if you are using an extension cord, be wary of overloading your outlets. 

If you’re unsure about the amount of power one outlet can handle, check your circuit breaker. All houses are going to have outlets with different capacities, and you should always know yours.  

Additionally, if you have young children in your home, invest in some sturdy outlet covers. They will prevent your children from sticking their fingers in outlets and subsequently drawing a spark.

Outlets are necessary for using the electricity in your house, but electricity can cause a fire if you aren’t careful. Remember this and use your outlets appropriately. 

Cook Cautiously

One final piece of advice is to cook cautiously. Believe it or not, a shockingly large number of house fires begin in the kitchen. 

When you’re cooking in the kitchen, there’s often a lot of different things going on all at once. It can be easy to accidentally forget about something baking in the oven or cooking on the stove. 

The best tip is to make sure you always turn the burners off when they are not in use. We recommend using the overhead fan to improve airflow when cooking, too. 

Also, make it a habit to never toss your kitchen towels onto the stovetop. You might accidentally forget to turn off a burner one day, and a towel on top of a hot burner is a recipe for disaster. 

Even if your kids are old enough to help out in the kitchen, keep an eye on what they’re doing. Children are more prone to making mistakes, and it’s just wise to never leave them unattended.

As a final suggestion, never leave the kitchen with unattended food. You never know when a child might wander in and touch something or knock a pan off the burner. Fires happen extremely quickly and leave little time to react, so it’s better to avoid creating them. 

Closing Thoughts

House fires are traumatic experiences that you want to avoid at all costs. With proper fireproofing, you can make your house much safer for your entire family. 

You can do this by limiting clutter, eliminating fire hazards, avoiding overloading of your outlets, and cooking cautiously. Fires can happen in several different ways, but a few sources cause most of them and this where you need to pay the most attention.

Children make the risk of a fire even higher. Take this into consideration and be particularly cautious anytime there’s a remote possibility of a fire happening!