A SOUND YOU CAN LIVE WITH

When I was a kid in school, it was always a major event to come home and announce to my family that we needed to inspect the house for fire hazards. We were told to do this by teachers, maybe a fireman came to the school, too, I don't remember. I do remember a check list.

Mother would be stiff about it, after all, she ran a clean and safe house, yet room by room we looked. And in some sort of way had a discussion about what to do. Of course, this was if a fire started in one place and didn't spread too quickly. One of the advantages for our family was we always lived in new homes.

But what about these really old houses with bad wiring? What about the people that live so far away from help that there house is going to burn to the ground? What about the Rye house that burned and they managed to save a drawer full of junk and the wood stove? What about the family that got burned out except for the clothing which was hanging on the wash line? What about the couple who were building a resort and had cash stored in a cedar chest? They didn't even have a tooth brush. And what about Sara and Caron who lost three pets because it was up in flames and only they could crawl out?

Even houses in the fifties do not support what we have in our homes now. There just isn't enough power to run everything at the same time. We live in a 1922 house, be assured it has been rewired. We have so much power one would think the house could fly on its own.

According to the National Fire Protection Association, nearly 900 lives could be saved by smoke alarms. Now in the beginning, they were hard wired and powered by electricity. A little stupid because if you power goes off--well you know the rest.

Now they are recommending a smoke detector IN EACH BEDROOM and in the hall way outside the bedrooms and on every other floor of the house. And if it is ten years old, it is time to replace it. We change the batteries at clocks forward and back, (daylight savings time).

Put some fire in your belly and get those smoke detectors checked each month. Be safe.

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