Prevention

Find tips for preventing home fires in the Town of Stouffville and learn about different fire control devices you can have at home.

It’s important to sit down with your family and make a step-by-step home escape plan. When creating a home escape plan:

• Draw a floor plan of your home, marking two ways out of every room - especially sleeping areas
• Discuss the escape routes with every member of your household
• Agree on a meeting place outside your home where every member of the household will gather to wait for the fire department
• Practice your escape plan at least twice a year, and make your fire drill realistic
• Pretend that some exits are blocked by fire and practice alternative escape routes
• Pretend that the lights are out and that some escape routes are filling with smoke
• Make sure everyone in the household can unlock all doors and windows quickly, even in the dark

Check out our home fire escape planning resource for more information. You can print it out and fill it in with your family and keep it in a common area for your family to refer to.

If it’s hard to find your property, it’s hard to help you in an emergency. Ensure that all house numbers are visible from the roadway. It’s also important to keep clear access to your home for emergency vehicles. Clear any overhead obstructions, such as overgrown trees.

Did you know that the leading cause of fires in the kitchen is unattended cooking? Review some cooking safety tips to help prevent kitchen fires:

• If you are sleepy or have consumed alcohol, don’t use the stove or stovetop
• If you leave the kitchen for even a short period of time, turn off the stove
• Keep anything that can catch fire, such as oven mitts, wooden utensils, food packaging, towels or curtains, away from your stovetop
• Stay in the kitchen while you are cooking
• Stay in your home while food is cooking, and use a timer for reminders

Check out these fire safety videos to learn more about preventing kitchen fires:

• What to do if a pot catches fire
• What to do if you have a fire in your oven

It’s great to have a fire extinguisher in your home but there are a few things to know before trying to use one:

• Only use fire extinguishers on small fires. With fires that are out of your control, your priority is to get out and stay out
• Make sure your fire extinguisher is easily accessible
• Make sure your fire extinguisher isn’t expired
• Always have an exit at your back when using a fire extinguisher
• Know how to use your fire extinguisher in advance
• Remember the acronym PASS:
  P – pull the pin
  A – aim at the base of the fire
  S- squeeze the handle
  S – sweep from side to side

We offer fire extinguisher training to help you learn about the different types of fire extinguishers and how to use them. The training session includes a presentation as well as a hands-on demonstration with our fire extinguisher prop.

To learn more about using fire extinguishers, book a training session with us by emailing wsfes@townofws.ca or calling 905-640-9595.

Home fire sprinklers provide effective, reliable and affordable protection for you and your family. With modern building materials, homes are burning faster and hotter than ever before. Sprinkler systems can control and, in some cases, even extinguish a fire before firefighters arrive. View the Home Fire Sprinkler Coalition to learn more.