I was driving home from watching a movie, and I saw a house on fire it was filled with smoke. The fire trucks, cops and everyone was there. That is one of my BIG fears that my house or a friends house will burn down or start on fire.

My question is.. what is the main things that causes house fires? What is the best way to prevent house fires?

faulty electrical or chimeny fires would be my guess for most common...that and arson.

prevention? hmmmm make sure you have your heaters, chimeny and electrical checked out. Also have fire extinguishers in at least 2 rooms per floor incase a fire does break out

Originally posted by NewtSys
faulty electrical or chimeny fires

How would I get these checked out to make sure I am safe?

We did some major remodeling of our home this past year and had quite a bit of wood beams and such that we tore out. We were having a bonfire one night and decided to burn some of the old wood from the house. Guess what? That stuff was VERY DIFFICULT to light on fire. :P

--Tina

Well I can talk to this a bit, since I am a firefighter.

Actually the number one cause for house fires is improperly discarded smoking materials. So if you don't smoke, you are one up on most folks.

The second is unattended cooking, most folks fall asleep or leave the house and come back to flames.

The next and I have seen this quite frequently in new construction homes is in fact faulty electrical wiring. The last one I saw were staples through the wiring, once the circuit became overloaded it caught the house on fire.

If you own a fairly new home in the US, let's say less than 12 years, your house will burn and burn extremely fast. Please please have an 2 ways to get out of each room and let your family know where to meet away from the house. New houses are basically glue and wood with some staples thrown in. Sad but true. I love fighting fires in old buildings, they don't fall in on us and generally they survive fires, usually one or two rooms burn and the fire is done. Newer homes, well they fall or collapse at a much higher rate. Just over one year ago, unfortunately two houses down from mine, partially collapsed on me and my partner with my family watching. Fortunately, I just got my bell rung and my breath knocked out of me. Floors are another bad thing, newer homes they fail much faster, oh the joys of falling through a floor in to a basement or a crawl space, fortunately I have only made the 4 foot drop in to a crawl space and not a basement.

Chimney fires although smokey rarely cause a house fire, generally smoke the place up and scare those folks inside, however the possibility is there if you never clean your chimneys. However this is the time of the year for it. Usually chimney related fires are from folks cleaning out they fireplace and putting the wood next to their house or on their porch and it being hotter than they realized. The wood gets better airflow being outside and their house burns.

For the electrical worries that you have, have an electrician come out to the house and have him check every circuit. Have them load test each circuit to ensure all the breakers trip properly. If you are really worried schedule an appointment for the fire department to come out and take a look behind your walls with a thermal imaging camera.

For the chimney, have it cleaned at least once a year.

Well that is about all I can say but support your Fire Departments, especially the Volunteer ones.

I am a member of Robbins Hose Company in Dover, Delaware. We are the only ALL volunteer fire department left in the entire United states protecting a State Capital. http://DoverFire.org

Well the house is about 10 mabey 11 years old now (a newer house). We just added 10 feet to each floor, and now it is becoming winter (and I live in Montana) we are putting in a earth heater.

What is the best way to keep it clean? How many times 1 time a month?

New homes are little more than pine and plasterboard, so I agree with 'smartbackups'. Old homes were built with hardwood or 'old forest' wood, being denser and taking longer to 'catch fire'. Pine makes great kindling when you light a BBQ so you can imagine how well it burns when their a whole house built on it, especially once it gets into the walls and shoot to the roof space.

House construction is a joke as well. I saw the framework for my fiancee's father's house being built and it was shoddy at best. Nail-gunning through pine splitting the frames, gaps in the spacers - you name it. Cover it all up in a bit of plasterboard and they consider it a job well done *shrug*.

After reading smartbackups comments ... I'm glad I live in a ~100 year old building.


akashik: Agreed. I saw several houses being put up in a development, and it looked like a joke.... they just don't make them like they used to. :(

You mean most homes in the USA are built on wood alone??? What happened to stone brick houses?

You should also be worried about newer homes that use metal clips (joist hangers) to hold joists, rafters and trusses in place. With the advent of "hangers", came the issue of them melting and failing much more easily than older homes that were often made with nails or even pegs (in the case of post and beam).

once I get enough money I am getting a older type home build or buy a older home. (I think they are alot safer then the newer ones)


Also update on the house that burned

No one lived in the house the person that sold it just moved out like a week before, and the new people where removdeling.

My uncle had part of his house burn down, it was more of a blessing than a tradegy, It was because of a dryer, Something to do with lint and gas. But he also lives in a 150+ year old home, and it is very big so the damage was very minimal. The blessing was that he got nearly everything new, all new computers and such because the insurance company told him to through it all out and put down the price at which you bought it for, and you would be reimbursed for that. This is not encouraging you to light your house on fire because fire marshals are smarter than what you think.

Originally posted by Adonis
You mean most homes in the USA are built on wood alone??? What happened to stone brick houses?

Americans are cheap and impatient! I'm really kidding, but sometimes it seems to be that way. I am an American so please save the flames (pun intended). Although I must say the speed houses are built today scares me a little.

House fires are no laughing matter....and that comes from someone who has been there. Time for a flashback....

This occured back in 1986, I was a whopping 8 years old at the time. We lived in a typical house, I would say it was probably built in the late sixties or early seventies. When they built the house they left an unfinished "hole" in part of the basement that they never got around to finishing.

On February 14th, 1986 at about 4:05 am our house exploded, literally. The initial blast blew most of the outer walls off of the house and collapsed the floor in several rooms. The blast itself woke up my entire family, except me, I could sleep through a freight train at the time. The gas meter was located just outside my sisters window, and was of course blown off in the intial blast causing a jetflame (for lack of a better description) coming through the window on her side of the room. She came over to my window but was unable to open it.

My parents room was across the hall with a bathroom in-between. The blast had blown the outside wall off of their room, which was where my dad was able to escape. My mother knew in her mind that my sister and I were still in the house. The problem was that in between the two rooms was a wall of flames where the bathroom was making it impossible to see if we were in there or to get there. That did not stop her. She went right through the flames, picked me up, grabbed ahold of my sister and tried to lead us out of the house.

I was still asleep at this point, just waking up. We went to try and go through the living room but the floor was gone so we had to turn around, go back through the bedroom and try to go through the kitchen. We were able to get through there although the walls were on fire, the floor was still there. I remember going through the kitchen and all of the cabinets being on fire and the refridgerator laying on it's side. We were able to get out through a split where the walls had been blown apart. About 20 seconds after we got out, the house collapsed.

Once we were out of the house, we went to our car as it was below zero that morning. A neighbor finally came over after a few minutes and took us to his house where the paramedics arrived a few minutes after that.

While we were there I noticed that the skin was peeling off of my mother, and being the age I was, not really understanding the full aspect of it. We were then taken by ambulance to the hospital. I can remember sitting in the ambulance with her, them pouring saline solution on her burns, her in obviously excrutiating pain and being more concerned with how I was.

After we got to the hospital and we were seperated, she could here me crying in another room down the hall and threw a fit because they would not let her see me. She was then life-flighted to the University of Iowa hospital where they could better handle her injuries. She had received burns on over 70% of her body and remained hospitalized for 3-4 months. I can still remember the screws in her fingers that they had to use to keep the fingers apart after they grafted the new skin on.

So I can honestly say that my mother gave me life twice, once when I was born, and again when she saved my life by risking hers.

What caused the explosion in the first place? Come to find out street crews had damaged a natural gas line several years prior in front of the house and the gas had leaked into the unfinished room in the basement. Since it had been filtered, there was no odor to alert us and it had basically saturated. It finally got to the point where it reached the furnace or the water heater and when it ignited, it set the whole thing off.

There was of course nothing left, they found pieces of the house blocks away. I have a video of it somewhere from the tv stations, I need to try and find it and convert it to digital anyway. Sadly people still came and took what they could find before we got the chance to.

So there's my flashback. As the fire-fighter mentioned above, you should always plan ahead for these things. We did have a plan, but both of our routes were blocked, although this is usually not the case. An alternate route will usually be available.

Matt that is what I call a hero!