How to Prevent a House Fire

While the old adage "keep the home fires burning" is supposed to leave you feeling warm and fuzzy, in reality house fires are nothing to be sentimental about. In fact, winter is when your home is most at risk for a home fire, as we learned with the Christmas Day fire in Stamford, Connecticut, that took the lives of five people, including grandparents and grandchildren.

Stories about that home fire mentioned that the house was currently under construction and perhaps the smoke alarms hadn't been reinstalled yet. Or the fact that the house was more than 100 years old and the rule of having smoke detectors throughout the house wasn't grandfathered as far as code goes. But a recent New York Times story uncovered the cause of that house fire—someone in the house had emptied hot embers from the fireplace and left them in a bin where they ended up igniting overnight.

Sadly, this is not the first time I've heard of hot embers causing a home fire. A few years ago, neighbors of ours did the same thing that this family in Stamford did—cleaned out the fireplace before going to bed—and before the fireplace embers had completely cooled. Hours later the embers ignited in the garage (where they'd been placed in a plastic garbage can), and the vapors from the two minivans parked in the garage fueled the fire. Luckily, the entire family—two adults, five kids, and a dog—escaped safely. But their home was a total loss.

These stories reminded me of how important it is to practice fire safety, not only in the winter but also all year long. So in order to remind you how not to burn down your house, here are 3 tips that I hope you'll put into practice right away:

1. Replace Smoke Alarm Batteries: Most people remember to change the batteries in their smoke detectors when the clocks change—but if daylight savings time came and went, and you didn't put fresh batteries in your alarms, go do so before the strike of midnight on New Year's Eve and before the ball drops.
2. Water Your Christmas Tree: Many families like to keep their Christmas trees up and decorated through Epiphany in January. If you have a real Christmas tree and it's been in your home for awhile, make sure you continue to water it. A dry pine tree is quite flammable.
3. Make Sure Your Fireplace is Clean: I'm not suggesting that you clean out your fireplace when there are hot embers in it. Rather, every year you should have your fireplace and chimney cleaned by a professional. Same advice applies to wood stoves. If that task fell to the bottom of your "to do" list in the craziness of the holidays, make an appointment with a local chimney sweep right away. A clean fireplace, flew, and chimney are less likely to catch on fire. While you're at it, have your furnace cleaned, too.