Fire Safety Links Alternative Heater Safety Appliance Safety Careless Smoking Children and Fire Cooking Fires Dormitory and Housing Safety Escape Planning Holiday Fire Safety Manufactured Home Fire Safety Prevent Arson Prevent Bedroom Fires Prevent Church Arson Seniors and Fire Smoke Alarms Winter Fires

PDF requires adobe acrobat pdf reader. download Careless Smoking return to main fire prevention page | home Never smoke in bed. Replace mattresses made prior to the 1973 Federal Mattress Flammability Standard. Don’t put ashtrays on the arms of sofas or chairs. Use large ashtrays with wide lips. While smaller ashtrays may be more attractive, they are not safe. Cigarettes can roll off the edge, and ashes can easily be blown away. Empty ashtrays into the toilet or an airtight metal container. Warm ashes dumped in waste cans can smolder for hours, then ignite. Don’t leave cigarettes, cigars or pipes unattended. Put out all smoking materials before you walk away. If you begin to feel drowsy while watching television or reading, extinguish your cigarette or cigar. Close a matchbook before striking and hold it away from your body. Set your cigarette lighter on “low” flame to prevent burns. If friends or relatives who smoke have visited, be sure to check on the floor and around chair cushions for ashes that may have been dropped accidentally. In case of a fire, stay low to the ground, beneath the smoke, and have an escape plan already worked out. Install a smoke alarm on every level of your home. Test the batteries every month and change them at least once a year.

Did you know? Eighty percent of all fire deaths occur in the home. Careless smoking is the leading cause of fire deaths! Deaths due to fires caused by careless smoking are particularly avoidable. Having a working smoke alarm more than doubles one’s chances of surviving a fire.