Home Fire Safety Tip

New Year's eve, there was a fire 

in a little town in central Oregon.

Three homes burned before residents

were able to extinguish the fire.

They are beyond any fire district.

Luckily, nobody was injured,

but what a loss.

One of the homes was an historic house and a bit of a landmark.

It did however, get me to thinking...

Some time back my dad told me that a common cause

for house fires used to be that mice would get to the matches

and chew the sulfur igniting the match.

Recently, I read that this is still a common source of house fires.

Many years ago, wall boxes were a common safe place.

There is an even better alternative:

those tin canisters that came with Christmas cookies in them

(that now hold only a couple crumbs) are perfect.

Our power goes out on a semi-regular basis,

and we have a wood stove

so we keep plenty of matches (mostly in a desk drawer.)

I hadn't really given it a lot of thought,

but the thought of a house fire is awakening to say the least.

We also live beyond the fire district.

We do have a generator and a water pump

so we could get water from the river even if the power was out,

but we have candles and matches in nearly every room in the house.

Needless to say they are going into tin cans, mason jars,
old wooden cigar boxes, empty candle jars (like below,) or any other
form of mouse proof container.

One other little side note.

I know a middle school teacher who has had to teach her 

students how to light a match.

We have gone from "Don't play with matches"

to "Don't touch matches."

If we teach children how to use them safely and properly as a tool

and not to 'play' with them (and explain why)

they will be knowledgable of and responsible with them.

If we teach them not to touch,

they remain ignorant of all of the above and are more likely

to sneak and play with them.

Let's start out the year on a safe footing.
P.S.   It's also a good idea to have a fire-extinguisher hanging around somewhere handy.

Until next time,

Nimble Fingers and Even Stitches