Autumn Fire Safety for Your Home

At Northeast Security Solutions, we’ve never taken a “one-size-fits-all” approach to securing our customers’ homes. We pride ourselves in creating the best possible security for each and every customer. We base our solutions on every property’s unique security needs, as well as our customers’ preferred security experience. However, we must make changes to our approach based on more than just these factors. In fact, we also encourage people to take certain security measures based on other factors, such as the changing of the seasons. With the leaves turning color and Halloween approaching, we have a few unique fall-related security threats on the horizon. Namely, this season brings about a sharp increase in the probability for a fire occurring in your home. In this post, we provide some best practices and security equipment tips for increasing your own autumn fire safety this season.

First, we’ll discuss how turning your heaters on can create fire hazards, and how you can address these threats. From there, we’ll share some tips to keep your home safe while burning candles. Then, we’ll shift our focus to adding monitored smoke and CO detection that will create a fire department response to fire emergencies in your home. Finally, we’ll review the role that fire extinguishers can play in adding autumn fire safety this year. Now, let’s get started with some best practices for preparing your home for heater use.

Sweater Weather Means “Heater Weather”

As you can probably guess, heater use contributes to the overall fire threat that the fall season ushers in. Before turning the heat on for the first time, consider inspecting and cleaning all of the components of your heating system, including both the cleaning unit itself and all heaters throughout your home. Of course, some heating maintenance differs based on what type of heat you have. We encourage you to consult your heating unit’s manuals and call the company that installed your heating unit for tips on maintenance.

Additionally, clean off your heaters before turning them on for the first time this year, and make sure that the areas around your heaters remain clear. Drapes, clothing, and loose papers around heaters can all work to undermine any autumn fire security precautions that you may undertake this year. Simply keeping your heaters clear of any flammable objects goes a long way! Now, let’s take a look at how following some candle-related best-practices can improve your overall fall fire security.

Gearing up for Peak Candle Season

What’s better than a cinnamon, pumpkin, or equally fall-related scent drifting through your home as the result of lighting a cozy-looking candle? Many homeowners begin burning candles in earnest as the weather gets colder. Of course, this practice brings its own fire-related dangers if those lighting candles fail to take proper precautions. For example, do not leave a room with a lit candle for a long period of time. Furthermore, as we pointed out in our Best Practices to Improve Bedroom Security, sometimes people fall asleep in bedrooms with burning candles. We strongly recommend blowing all candles out well before falling asleep.

Additionally, candles and decorations pose a unique candle-related fire threat. In fact, the NFPA shares that festive decorations directly lead to more candle-related fires. From Halloween through Thanksgiving and then through the holiday season, the danger from festive decorations obviously increases. We recommend keeping a safe distance between decorations and candles and, once again, making sure you do not leave lit candles unattended. Taking basic precautions can go a long way towards adding both security and peace of mind as turning on your heat, lighting candles, and decorating your home all come into play this autumn. Let’s now turn our attention to a couple security products that you can install to create autumn fire safey!

Monitoring Your Smoke and CO Detection

When we install a security system for our customers, we also connect their alarms to our monitoring service. In doing so, we make sure that our central station responds to any alarm activations. Up an activation, our central station dispatchers can call the premises to check on the situation. If necessary, they can even dispatch the proper authorities to your home! Obviously, this adds quite a bit of security and peace of mind for our customers. When most of our customers think about this service, they think about it in terms of burglary-related security. Of course, this represents an extremely important aspect of what these systems offer. Thieves coming through doors or windows activate door sensors and motion detectors that activate your alarm’s siren, set the monitoring response in motion, and get the police to your property.

However, burglar security only represents a small portion of what these alarms can accomplish. In addition to watching over your home for criminal activity, they can also provide a valuable measure of life safety as well. We offer monitored smoke and CO detection that can alert you to the presence of a fire or carbon monoxide-related emergency in your home. More importantly, these devices also create a fire department dispatch that can save your home in your absence, or even save the life of you or a family member if someone is home during one of these events! We highly recommend adding this security to any existing alarm system. Now, let’s look at using fire extinguishers to increase your home’s autumn fire safety.

Create the Ability to Stop a Fire in its Tracks

Fire extinguishers provide our customers with a quick, effective way to control the spread of fires. Unfortunately, we run into a couple issues when it comes to extinguishers in homes. For starters, many homeowners fail to purchase any fire extinguishers at all. We consider these devices a basic and essential piece of any security plan. However, many people see them as a “commercial” security measure and fail to provide their family with any fire extinguishers at their home. Obviously, purchasing extinguishers and placing them strategically can help address this issue.

Additionally, we often find that customers buy the wrong types of extinguishers for the job. For example, did you know you should fight any grease or cooking oil-related fire with a very specific type of extinguisher? These extinguishers, called class “K” extinguishers, can douse kitchen fires that no other extinguisher could properly fight. Moreover, using the wrong type of extinguisher can actually make fires spread more quickly! Feel free to check out our post on Fire Extinguisher Classes and Best Practices for more information on this subject. As always, feel free to call us so that we can help you purchase the right extinguishers for your home.

Putting it All Together and Creating Autumn Fire Safety for Your Home

We hope that this post helps your efforts in creating autumn fire safety this year and in years to come. If you have any questions about the material presented here, please do not hesitate to contact us. We will happily answer any and all of your security-related inquiries. Additionally, we also invite you to take advantage of our free site survey program. We’ve long offered complimentary site visits and equipment quotes to both new and existing customers alike. While on site, we can help you find solutions that address all of your existing security concerns. Furthermore, we can point out any additional security concerns that we can find during our visit, as well as ways to address them.

Perhaps you have a security plan in place now, and wish to take advantage of the tips discussed here. Or, maybe you don’t have any security equipment at the moment, and wish to get started right from the ground up. Either way, we are here to help. Over our 36-plus years in business, we’ve helped over a thousand customers design and implement complete security plans. Together, we can create a system of security devices to help you keep your home, your valuables, and your family as safe and secure as possible during this fall season and beyond!