City of Casa Grande

If you are using your fireplace to keep warm this winter, be sure to thoroughly clean out ashes and other debris from the fireplace and open the damper before starting a fire. Use crumbled paper or kindling wood to start the fire; never use a flammable liquid. Add only as much wood as needed to keep the fire burning. Never burn trash, food, or cardboard boxes in the fireplace. Keep the damper open while the fire is burning.

You should avoid burning unseasoned firewood and other items for health and safety reasons. Many of these will produce hazardous fumes indoors, as well as chimney emissions that would be an environmental concern. Some also pose additional risks to your stove metals or can create a hazardous build-up of creosote in your chimney.

Items you should not burn in your fireplace, wood-burning stove or furnace include:

• Garbage of any kind, magazines
• Treated, painted, or coated wood
• Animal carcasses
• Plastics and rubber products
• Railroad ties, asphalt products
• Plywood, particle board, scrap lumber and pallets cannot be burned even if the pieces are not painted or coated

The inks and dyes used for the coloring and printing of paper and plastics when burned become a toxic cocktail. One of the pollutants that results when paper and plastics are burned in a wood stove is dioxin, a highly toxic chemical that doesn’t decompose and which builds up in the tissues of animals and humans.
Use care and common sense when it comes to feeding your fireplace or woodstove. Make sure you have an active carbon monoxide alarm in the area and that your home is equipped with working smoke detectors and a fire escape plan. The City of Casa Grande Fire Marshal, Paul Zalewski, advises that you should have a gated screen in front of your fireplace and a fire extinguisher nearby in case of loose embers.

HOME SAFETY INFORMATION
The City Of Casa Grande Residents Urged to Tackle Home Hazards Room-by-Room

While most people claim they feel safest in their homes, Home Safety Council® research shows that nearly 20,000 deaths and 21 million medical visits occur on average each year as a result of injuries in and around the home.  The City Of Casa Grande Fire Department is urging Casa Grande residents to tackle safety dangers room-by-room and providing simple steps they can follow.

"The City of Casa Grande Fire Department is working with the Home Safety Council to encourage Casa Grande residents to take a room-by-room approach when working to improve home safety,” said Isabel Vasquez, Fire Prevention Officer.  “Starting with simple and inexpensive changes in each area of the home, inside and out, will help families make a real difference in preventing injuries and keeping loved ones safe.”

MySafeHome.org – Virtual Home Opens its Doors to Teach Safety
The Home Safety Council’s new online destination, MySafeHome.org, is an innovative and interactive Web site that lets users explore a virtual home so they can understand where dangers lurk in their own homes. Using digital motion graphics animation in a navigable, virtual home and yard, MySafeHome.org illustrates the major risk areas found throughout the home and presents the safety devices and preparedness plans needed to make every home safe.

A Safer Home: Room-by-Room Roadmap
New research from the Home Safety Council found that U.S. adults rank the kitchen, bathroom and stairway/hallway as the most dangerous rooms of the home. Although the majority of the adults surveyed recognize the presence of injury risks in these areas, nearly half (45 percent) admit they have not taken action to make any of the rooms in their home safer.

To help people take action and make the critical improvements needed to prevent home injuries, the City Of Casa Grande Fire Department is joining the Home Safety Council’s Home Safety Month campaign and encouraging families to tackle safety dangers in each area of the home. Follow the Council’s simple steps below to protect your family from the leading causes of home injury.

Kitchen Safety

Always stay in the kitchen while cooking on the range, especially when frying food.

To reduce the risk of accidental poisonings, keep all dangerous products away from food and drinks and lock them up after use. Be especially aware of products with fruit shown on the labels, which could be confused as being edible.

Protect little ones from burns by using tape to mark a three-foot safety margin around the stove. Keep children and pets away from the range and keep a close eye on them at all times.  Use back burners with pot handles turned in.

Bathroom Safety

Pay close attention and stay within an arm’s length of children in and around water. This includes bathtubs, toilets, pools and spas – even buckets of water.

To reduce the risk of falls, use grab bars and a non-slip mat or strips in baths and showers.

To prevent hot water scald burns, keep your water heater set to 120 degrees Fahrenheit or lower. Install tub spouts and shower heads with anti-scald features.

Garage Safety

Gasoline, anti-freeze, pesticides and fertilizer are poison. Make sure these items have child-resistant caps in place, are clearly labeled and are stored in a locked cabinet out of sight and reach of children.

To prevent falls, keep floors and steps clear of clutter and immediately clean up grease and other spills.

To prevent carbon monoxide (CO) poisoning, never run a barbecue grill, car or generator in the garage or any other room of your home.

Backyard Safety

To prevent drowning, make sure your children always swim with a grownup. No child or adult should swim alone.

Use a sturdy ladder when climbing and place it on level ground to lessen the risk of outdoor falls.

Prevent playground injuries by covering areas under and at least six feet around play equipment with 12 inches of soft materials, such as rubber mulch or hardwood chips.

Stairway Safety

Install bright lights and on/off switches at the tops and bottoms of each stairwell and over porches and entryways.

In homes with young children, use sturdy safety gates at the tops and bottoms of stairways.

Have handrails on both sides of stairs and steps and use them.  Always keep the stairs and hallways clear.

For more information on how to keep your family safe in and around the home, please visit www.homesafetycouncil.org.

Visit www.MySafeHome.org to experience an online home safety tour and build a customizable safety plan for your own home.