National Fire Prevention Week, October 9-15, 2011; Protect Your Family From Fire.

The National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) theme for Fire Prevention Week  is “Protect Your Family from Fire”. Fire Prevention Week will be held October 9-15, 2011. NFPA has sponsored the fire prevention campaign since 1922, spreading awareness of the dangers of fires and inspiring individuals to prevent the deaths, injuries, and destruction they cause. This year’s theme focuses on how to protect your family from fire by planning ahead and integrating simple things into your everyday life.

Fires can strike anywhere - in buildings, automobiles, and the outdoors - but fires that affect our homes are often the most tragic and the most preventable. Over 75% percent of all fire fatalities occur in home fires. This year's National Fire Prevention Week theme is, Protect Your Family from Fire. You can protect your family by, Installing smoke alarms on every level of your home, Testing smoke alarms once a month, Changing smoke alarm batteries at least once a year, and Making and practicing a home fire escape plan. Fires can occur in a variety of ways and in any room of your home. Having a smoke alarm is the first key step towards your family's safety. A smoke alarm stands guard around the clock and, when it first senses smoke, it sounds a shrill alarm. This often allows a family the precious but limited time it takes to escape. Properly installed and maintained smoke alarms are considered to be one of the best and least expensive means of providing an early warning of a potentially deadly fire and could reduce the risk of dying from a fire in your home by almost half.
Fires in the home take a great toll on life and property each year. During the five-year-period from 2005-2009, NFPA estimates that U.S. fire departments responded to an average of 373,900 reported home structure fires per year. These fires caused an estimated average of 2,650 civilian deaths, 12,890 civilian injuries, and $7.1 billion in direct property damage per year. Smoking materials remain the leading cause of home fire deaths, while cooking equipment is the leading cause of home structure fires and home fire injuries.
Installing systems such as smoke alarms and residential fire sprinklers, as well as identifying potential hazards, can reduce the risk of home fires and property loss, injury, or death due to fire. Nearly two-thirds of home structure fire deaths occur in homes where there was no smoke alarm, or where smoke alarms were present but failed to operate.

NFPA has taken the lead in public fire safety outreach by serving as the official sponsor of Fire Prevention Week for 89 years. The annual public awareness and safety commemoration, which is proclaimed by the President of the United States each year, is observed by fire departments in the U.S. and Canada to mark the anniversary of the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. According to the National Archives and Records Administration’s Library Information Center, Fire Prevention Week is the longest running public health and safety observance on record.

Visit the Fire Prevention Week website for safety tips, statistical information, and more. The materials are available for use by fire departments, teachers, families and anyone interested in learning or teaching about fire safety.

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