During just two weeks in December: Flames drive a teen and his grandmother from their Riverdale home. A DeKalb County woman dies in a Christmas night fire. One man escapes and another dies in an overnight inferno in Peachtree City. An 88-year-old woman and her 4-year-old great-granddaughter lose everything in a Coweta County fire.
It’s a dangerous season in Georgia. And yet a few precautions can keep homeowners safer.
During the last three months of 2010, the number of victims of house fires that Metro Atlanta’s Red Cross has been called to help nearly doubled from the year before. The agency responded to 206 incidents since October, nearly all fires, compared with 147 during the same time a year ago. That meant 1,348 victims in the past three months, compared with 780 in 2009.
“Winter is peak fire season,” said Sherry Nicholson, spokeswoman for the Red Cross of Metro Atlanta, which covers 13 counties and is the busiest of the relief agency’s 15 chapters in the state.
The holidays bring extra cooking, candles and overburdened electrical outlets “and you throw that together with the cold weather and people trying to stay warm with fires and space heaters,” Nicholson said, and the risk rises. “October kicks off fire season and it goes pretty strongly through January.”
According to its annual report, Georgia’s Red Cross responds to more disasters and assists more families than any other region in the country. In Georgia, nearly all of those disasters were fire related.
Across the country, home and apartment dwellers face an average of 385,100 fires each year, according to the U.S. Fire Safety Administration (USFA), a branch of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Those disasters cause 2,470 deaths, 12,600 injuries and $6.43 billion in property loss.
In Georgia, 86 people died last year in fires. That’s down dramatically since 1995. Fire fatalities have numbered fewer than 100 since 2007, according to statistics from the office of Insurance and Safety Fire Commissioner John Oxendine.
Still, the USFA ranks Georgia 13th in the country, behind the District of Columbia, Mississippi and other states, in the number of fire deaths per million residents.
Oxendine believes more fire deaths could be avoided if every home had working smoke alarms.
“It’s your number one defense against a home fire. And it is very rare that anyone dies in a home fire if they have an operating smoke alarm,” Oxendine said. “In most communities [local fire departments] will provide you with one, and if not, we’ll make sure you get one. If you cannot afford one, you can call my office.”
The state fire marshal’s office number is 404-656-2064. The city of Atlanta’s fire department, like others around the state, has a program to install free smoke alarms. City residents can call 404-546-2525 or visit www.atlantaga.gov/Government/Fire.aspx.
In fact, Georgia law requires all homes to have smoke detectors. But it gets a bit complicated from there.
Not all smoke alarms are the same, and Georgia law doesn’t specify what homes should have.
The most basic is an ionization alarm, which sells for about $5 for battery-operated models. These generally respond faster to flaming, fast-moving fires, such as those involving paper or flammable liquids. Photoelectric alarms, which sell for about $20, respond faster to smoldering fires, such as those ignited by cigarettes in upholstered furniture and bedding materials. Dual alarms, with both ionization and photoelectric sensors, cost about $30.
The USFA recommends all homes install both ionization and photoelectric smoke alarms or that they have dual sensor alarms.
But a study last year based on fire tests at a laboratory at the National Institute of Standards and Technology showed dual sensor alarms gave faster warnings for both flaming and smoldering fires than a pairing of ionization and photoelectric alarms.
In Massachusetts and Vermont, the law mandating smoke alarms requires that they be photoelectric. In Iowa, beginning last April, all new residential construction has to have dual sensor smoke alarms.
Most of the free alarm programs in Georgia provide the less expensive ionization alarms.
For Red Cross volunteer Hal Simmons, one of the most important safety tips, in addition to working smoke alarms, is for homeowners and apartment residents to have fire-response plans and to think about the causes of fire before they act.
“About 99 percent of [those] who we service don’t have an evacuation plan or what they are going to do if there’s an accident,” said Simmons, who coordinates a database of 150 volunteers and believes he needs four times that many. “Fire is so devastating, and it moves so quickly.”
YOUR SAFETY
Tips to help prevent fires and to keep safe if one happens:
- When using a fireplace, open the damper for proper ventilation.
- Never use a stove-top or oven to heat your home.
- All heaters need space. Keep things that can burn, such as paper, bedding or furniture, at least three feet away from heating equipment.
- Major appliances should be plugged directly into a wall outlet, never an extension cord.
- Be alert to recurring issues with blown fuses or tripped circuit breakers. Investigate the cause before replacing fuses or resetting breakers or call an electrician.
Call a licensed electrician if you have:
- A tingling feeling when you touch an electrical appliance
- Discolored or warm wall outlets or switches
- A burning smell or rubbery odor coming from an appliance
- Sparks from an outlet
- Flickering or dimming lights
- Install working smoke alarms on every level and near each sleeping area.
- Replace the batteries annually, if needed. Some models have long-life batteries intended to last up to 10 years. Replace all smoke alarms when they are 10 years old or sooner if they do not respond properly when tested.
- Ionization smoke detectors, which are less expensive, typically are faster at detecting flaming, fast-moving fires, while photoelectric detectors respond more quickly to smoldering fires. A third option is dual sensors, which incorporate both technologies. The U.S. Fire Administration recommends having both ionization and photoelectric alarms or to install dual sensors.
- For the best protection, interconnect all smoke alarms throughout the house. When one sounds, they all sound.
- Make sure everyone in the house can hear and knows how to respond to the sound of the smoke alarm. Have a meeting place (something permanent like a tree, light pole or mailbox) a safe distance away.
- Make an escape plan. Draw a floor plan of each level of the home. Discuss it with all members of your household.
Sources: American Red Cross; National Fire Protection Association; Atlanta Fire Department; U.S. Fire Administration
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CHECK OUR SOURCES
Metropolitan Atlanta Red Cross:
American Red Cross:
National Fire Protection Association:
Smoke alarm study showing dual sensor alarms react faster than a mix of ionization and photoelectric alarms:
Smoke alarm information, including state-by-state regulations:
Georgia Office of Insurance and Safety Fire Commissioner:
City of Atlanta Fire Department:
