A Quarter of All Fires Start at Home | SERVPRO® of Eastern Rockland County

11/11/2021 (Permalink)

Regardless of the cause, SERVPRO of Eastern Rockland County are here for you if your home is affected by fire.

Fires at home are still a problem, despite practical education, advances in technology and visible ad campaigns to try and help us put them to an end. 

How are these fires getting started, and what can we do to prevent them? Let’s dive in and take a look.

Cooking. Whenever you’re dealing with hot oil, grease and heating elements, you run the risk of something getting out of hand. And it stands to reason that the occasional fire would result from grilling or a stovetop accident. But the frustrating thing about this statistic is the fact that most of the whopping 49% of home fires that start in the kitchen happen because of unattended cooking. You read that right—the No. 1 cause of the 350,000 annual home fires in the United States is people not paying attention while they cook.

Heating equipment. When the weather gets colder, we use heaters to keep the house cozy, which introduces a natural risk of fire. Space heaters in particular have a reputation for sparking the combustibles around them, or starting fires when they overheat or tip over. If you use space heaters, make sure you’ve got a new one with more safety features.

Electrical fires. Think about how many things in your home right this second are chewing up electricity. That number may or may not get even higher depending on what time of day and who’s in the home. But if your home is older, it may not be equipped for all that electrical pull. And older wires are far more likely to fault, short-circuit or become damaged anyway.

Smoking materials. The lowest-ranking cause of home fires is, in a sense, the most costly—though only 5% of house fires are started due to smoking materials, they account for the highest percentage (almost a quarter) of all civilian fire fatalities.

Regardless of the cause, SERVPRO of Eastern Rockland County is here for you if your home is affected by fire. Contact your local team today to see how we can help.