Winter is coming … and so is an increase in house fires.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
According to Fire and Rescue NSW Inspector Don Pescud, fire crews get called to more house fires in the colder months than any other time of the year.
“Because it will get cold and wet, this is the most statistically high time for property fires, for house fires,” Inspector Pescud said.
“That’s because people are inside and they’re not paying attention to their cooking or they’re not paying the attention that they should to their heaters when they get their heaters out.
“The first actual cold days, when it’s wet, that’s the most dangerous time for house fires.”
It is a misconception that house fires won’t occur if it’s been raining – people stay indoors when it rains and so fires take hold from the inside.
Inspector Pescud said people should stay in the kitchen when cooking all year round but that, combined with other factors, increased the risk of fires.
“They’re not staying in the room when they’re cooking,” he said.
“People still do that all year round, but that’s in addition to not maintaining the heaters and no maintaining the clothes dryers, not cleaning out the filters.”
He said the filters in dryers needed to be cleaned out to stop the risk of heat from the machine igniting the lint.
As well as cleaning out dryers Inspector Pescud also said people should inspect the cords before plugging in heaters for the first time this winter.
People should also maintain safe distances from heaters and never drape clothes or other items over them.
Inspector Pescud also said it was 10 years ago that smoke alarms became mandatory and it was time to replace them.
“We’re urging NSW residents to replace outdated 10-year-old smoke alarms with photoelectric smoke alarms,” he said.
“The old ones are ionisation alarms and they don’t detect smoldering fires as well as the photoelectric alarms.”