96 Fun Facts About Fire Safety

According to the U.S. Fire Administration, what is by far the leading cause of home fires?

Cooking. It is also the top cause of home fire injuries, and the biggest single factor is equipment left unattended, which is why the advice is simply to stay in the kitchen.

What does the U.S. Fire Administration say to use on a stovetop grease fire?

A pan lid or baking sheet. Slide it over the flames, turn off the burner and leave it covered until it cools; the NFPA adds that water should never be thrown on a grease fire.

The U.S. Fire Administration says you may have less than how long to escape once a smoke alarm sounds?

2 minutes. Modern furnishings and open floor plans make home fires grow faster than they used to, which is why the advice is to plan two ways out of every room in advance.

How often does the U.S. Fire Administration say you should test your smoke alarms?

Every month. Pressing the test button until the alarm sounds is all it takes, and the NFPA and the American Red Cross give the same monthly advice.

After how many years does the U.S. Fire Administration say an entire smoke alarm unit should be replaced?

10. The clock runs from the manufacture date printed on the alarm, not from the day it went up, and the NFPA likewise says to replace any unit more than ten years old.

The U.S. Fire Administration wants smoke alarms on every level, outside each sleeping area and where else?

Inside each bedroom. A closed door slows the spread of smoke, heat and fire, so a sleeper needs an alarm on their own side of it as well as one in the hall.

Ionization smoke detectors ionize the air using a small amount of which radioactive isotope?

Americium-241. Its alpha particles ionize the air between two charged plates so a small current flows, and smoke drifting in breaks that flow of ions and trips the alarm.

Which type of detector responds faster to a fire in its early, smouldering stage?

Photoelectric. The NFPA says these alarms respond sooner to smouldering fires and ionization alarms to flaming ones, so the U.S. Fire Administration recommends having both kinds.

Which Founding Father helped set up the volunteer Union Fire Company?

Benjamin Franklin. He pressed for it in his Pennsylvania Gazette, and the company formed in Philadelphia in 1736, each member pledging to bring leather buckets to every fire.

Which three things make up the classic fire triangle?

Heat, fuel and oxygen. Take away any one side and the fire goes out, which is why water cools a blaze and a fire blanket shuts out the air.

What does the fire tetrahedron add to the three sides of the fire triangle?

Chemical chain reaction. Dry chemical extinguishers put a fire out mainly by interrupting that reaction rather than by cooling it.

Under the US system, which letter designates fires in cooking oils and fats?

K. Europe and Australia file the same fires under Class F, and they call for a wet chemical extinguisher, never a solid stream of water.

Class D fires involve which kind of material?

Combustible metals such as magnesium. Lithium, sodium and titanium count too, and because several react violently with water these fires need dry powder agents made for Class D alone.

In the PASS steps for using a fire extinguisher, where should you aim the nozzle?

The base of the fire. PASS stands for pull the pin, aim low, squeeze the lever slowly and sweep the nozzle from side to side.

In which month do the US and Canada hold Fire Prevention Week?

October. The week marks the Great Chicago Fire, which began on October 8, 1871 and burned on through the 9th, and the NFPA has sponsored the observance since 1922.

Which president proclaimed the first National Fire Prevention Week, in 1925?

Calvin Coolidge. His 1925 proclamation made it a national observance, timed each year to the anniversary of the Great Chicago Fire of 1871.

The Great Chicago Fire is said to have started in a barn belonging to which family?

The O'Learys. Legend blames Catherine O'Leary's cow for kicking over a lantern, but the cause was never determined and Chicago's city council formally cleared her in 1997.

On the same day as the Great Chicago Fire, an even deadlier blaze consumed which Wisconsin town?

Peshtigo. It killed at least 1,200 people against Chicago's roughly 300, yet the city fire took the headlines and the forest fire is far less remembered.

Which mascot has fronted the U.S. Forest Service's fire prevention campaign since 1944?

Smokey Bear. A real orphaned cub rescued from New Mexico's Capitan Gap fire in 1950 became his living symbol and spent the rest of its life at the National Zoo in Washington.

In 2001, the slogan 'Only you can prevent forest fires' had its last two words replaced with what?

Wildfires. The update followed a run of big fires in natural areas outside forests, such as grasslands, which the old wording left out.

Sparky the Fire Dog, the NFPA's mascot created in 1951, is what breed?

Dalmatian. The NFPA calls the choice a nod to the breed's history in the fire service, where the dogs once ran with horse-drawn engines as coach dogs.

'Stop, drop and roll' puts out flames on clothing mainly by doing what?

Depriving the fire of oxygen. Rolling on the ground smothers the flames, and stopping first matters because running only fans them.

The U.S. Fire Administration says to keep anything that can burn at least how far from a space heater?

3 feet. The same advice says to switch a heater off whenever you leave the room or go to bed, and never to use an oven to heat your home.

The NFPA says to keep a burning candle at least how far from anything that can burn?

12 inches. The NFPA and the US Fire Administration also say to blow candles out whenever you leave the room or go to bed.

Which appliances does the US Fire Administration say must never be plugged into an extension cord?

Refrigerators, stoves, washers and dryers. The extension cord can overheat and start a fire, so major appliances should go straight into a wall outlet.

Where does the U.S. Fire Administration say used lithium-ion batteries should go?

A battery recycling location. The EPA says the cells can be crushed in a trash or recycling truck and start a fire, so they belong at a separate collection point.

Carbon monoxide is dangerous partly because it is what?

Colourless, tasteless and odourless. It forms when fuel burns incompletely, so blocked flues, unvented heaters and cars left running in attached garages are common culprits.

The early symptoms of carbon monoxide poisoning are often mistaken for which illness?

The flu. Headache, dizziness and nausea are the usual first signs, and the EPA's tell is that they clear up once you leave the house.

In a standard fire sprinkler system, what makes an individual sprinkler head open?

Heat reaching the head. It breaks a glass bulb or melts a solder link, so only the sprinkler nearest the fire opens and the rest of the building stays dry, unlike in the movies.

When escaping a house fire through smoke, why are you told to get low and crawl?

Cleaner air is near the floor. Heavy smoke and poisonous gases collect along the ceiling first, so Ready.gov and the Red Cross both say to get low and go under the smoke to your exit.

The first 911 emergency call in the United States was made in 1968 in which state?

Alabama. The call was placed in Haleyville, a town of about 4,000 people, where the local Alabama Telephone Company ran the new number into the police station.

Which country introduced the world's first emergency telephone number, 999, in 1937?

United Kingdom. The service began in London after a 1935 house fire in Wimpole Street killed five women while a neighbour's call sat unanswered at a jammed switchboard.

Which Chicago theatre, billed as fireproof, burned weeks after opening in America's deadliest theatre fire?

The Iroquois Theatre. More than 600 people died in 1903, most of them trapped at exits that were blocked or hidden, five weeks after it opened.

The Great Fire of London in 1666 broke out in a bakery on which street?

Pudding Lane. Thomas Farriner's bakery caught light soon after midnight on 2 September, and the losses inspired the first fire insurers, whose hired crews were London's earliest fire brigades.

If a closed door feels hot during a house fire, what should you do?

Use another way out. Ready.gov says to feel the doorknob and the door before opening, and the Red Cross says never to open a door that is warm to the touch.

Why do fire hydrants use a five-sided operating nut?

It needs a special wrench. Five-point sockets are uncommon, which stops anyone with ordinary tools from opening a hydrant casually.

The green 'running man' exit sign, now an international standard, came from a late-1970s design contest in which country?

Japan. Designer Yukio Ota's pictogram won a fire-safety association's contest and was later adopted as the ISO standard, prized because a wordless sign works in any language.

On the NFPA 704 fire diamond, what does the blue quadrant rate?

Health hazard. Red rates flammability and yellow instability, each from 0 to 4, so crews arriving at a fire can size up the chemicals inside at a glance.

What do firefighters call the moment when nearly everything in a burning room ignites at once?

Flashover. NIST calls it the most dangerous stage of a fire, reached when hot gases heat every exposed surface to ignition, whereas a backdraft needs a sudden rush of fresh air.

Small kitchen fire blankets are usually made from which material?

Glass fibre. A fire blanket can also be wrapped round a person whose clothes have caught light, putting the flames out quickly.

What does the strip fitted around the edge of a fire door do when exposed to heat?

Expands to seal the gap. The intumescent strip swells and bubbles as it heats, closing the space between the door and its frame so that smoke and flames cannot slip around the edge.

What does a smoke alarm's single chirp every minute or so usually mean?

The battery is low. The NFPA says a chirp every 30 or 60 seconds calls for a new battery, while three loud beeps in a row mean smoke or fire and time to get out.

Ancient Rome's firefighting corps, created under Augustus in AD 6, was known as what?

The Vigiles. They patrolled Rome's streets at night to spot fires early, and when one took hold they used hooks and axes to pull down burning buildings before the flames could spread.

What does the firefighter's abbreviation SCBA stand for?

Self-contained breathing apparatus. Self-contained means the air comes from a cylinder the wearer carries rather than down a hose from a remote supply, the same idea behind the diver's word scuba.

The NFPA was founded in 1896 by insurers and a pipe maker to standardise what?

Fire sprinkler systems. Nine radically different rules for pipe sizes and sprinkler spacing were in force within 100 miles of Boston, and the group's first report grew into the standard now called NFPA 13.

How often do the NFPA and the American Red Cross say to practise a home fire escape plan?

Twice a year. The NFPA wants the drill as realistic as possible, and the U.S. Fire Administration says to start it by pushing the smoke alarm's test button.

On which American holiday do home kitchen fires run at more than three times the daily average?

Thanksgiving is the peak day of the year for such blazes, and food left unattended on the heat is by far the biggest factor.

Dust from which pantry staple blew apart a Minneapolis mill in 1878, killing eighteen people?

Flour dust hanging in the air burns explosively, and after the Washburn A Mill disaster mills across the country fitted ventilation to stop it building up.

Which word, often misread as 'fireproof', actually means the same as 'flammable' on a warning label?

Inflammable comes from the Latin for 'to set fire to', and the mix-up is so dangerous that fire-safety bodies pushed for 'flammable' on warning labels instead.

Which firework does the US Fire Administration warn can reach 1,200 degrees Fahrenheit?

Sparklers can cause third-degree burns, and the US Fire Administration says the best way to stay safe is to skip home fireworks and watch a professional display.

The US government's Ready.gov sums up house fires in four words: fast, hot, deadly and which other?

Dark is the surprise: a fire starts bright, but black smoke soon brings complete darkness, so families are told to practise escaping with their eyes closed.

Which kind of main entrance jammed with bodies in Boston's Cocoanut Grove nightclub fire of 1942?

A revolving door was the club's main way in and out, and laws passed after the 492 deaths mean a revolving door can no longer be a building's only exit.

Which word for a night-time restriction comes from an Old French order to cover household fires?

Curfew began as 'couvre-feu', the evening bell that told medieval households to cover their hearth fires so that timber-built towns would not burn overnight.

Which diarist buried his wine and Parmesan cheese in a pit to save them from London's Great Fire?

Samuel Pepys also took a boat onto the Thames to watch the flames spread and was the first person to tell the king about the fire.

Which fire-resistant mineral were theatre safety curtains originally made from?

Asbestos curtains were built to hold a stage fire back long enough for the audience to leave, and British theatres still call the barrier 'the iron'.

Rags soaked in which oil can heat up while drying and burst into flames unaided?

Linseed oil gives off heat as it hardens, and a crumpled rag traps enough to ignite, the suspected cause of a 1991 Philadelphia skyscraper fire that killed three firefighters.

Ready.gov's 'Fire is deadly' warning says which threat kills more people in house fires than flames do?

Smoke and toxic gases are the bigger killer because the fumes leave people disoriented and drowsy just when they most need to move fast.

When clothes catch fire and a person drops to roll, which part of the body should the hands cover?

The face is shielded with both hands while the person rolls over and over until the flames are out; the burn is then cooled with water for three to five minutes.

If a pet is still trapped inside a burning home, what does Ready.gov advise the escaped family to do?

Alert the firefighters right away and stay out: children are taught never to go back inside a burning building for anything.

If fire traps someone in a room, what does Ready.gov say to cover vents and door cracks with?

Cloth or tape keeps the smoke from seeping in; the next steps are to phone for help and wave something light-coloured at the window.

What does the US Fire Administration suggest hotel guests count between their room and the exits?

Doors can be counted by touch, which lets a guest find the exit when thick smoke means nothing in the corridor can be seen.

Where does the US Fire Administration say a family's outside meeting place should be?

In front of the home is the spot to choose, and children should practise going there so they know what to do if an alarm sounds with no adult around.

Which lights do US fire officials recommend instead of candles when a storm knocks the power out?

Flashlights carry no open flame, whereas candles are behind about 20 reported home fires every day in the United States.

What does the US Fire Administration teach children to do if they find matches or a lighter?

Tell an adult, and never touch them: parents are urged to keep lighters and matches locked up in a high place.

What does the US Fire Administration say to draw first when making a family fire escape plan?

A map of the home that marks every door and window helps a family pick out two ways to leave each room.

After a 1937 explosion killed hundreds at a Texas school, what was added to natural gas?

A strong smell from sulphur compounds called mercaptans was added within weeks, because the gas that leaked into the school could not be seen or sniffed out.

Which device in a home's electrical panel trips automatically when the wiring carries too much current?

A circuit breaker cuts the power before overloaded wiring can overheat and start a fire, and unlike a fuse it can simply be reset afterwards.

Since 2011, every US state has required which product to be designed to go out when left unattended?

Cigarettes sold in America are wrapped with bands of less porous paper where the ember dies unless the smoker keeps inhaling; New York passed the first such law in 2000.

Once barbecue coals have cooled, which lidded container do US fire officials say to put them in?

A metal can with a lid is the safe place for spent coals, and the grill itself should never be stored or used on a porch or balcony.

US rules say children's cotton pyjamas must be what, unless the fabric is treated to resist flames?

Tight-fitting is the American rule, while Britain lets looser pyjamas be sold as long as the label warns buyers to keep them away from fire.

Fire researchers say house fires now spread faster because modern furniture is made largely of what?

Synthetic materials burn so fiercely that a shut door can mean 100 degrees on one side and 1,000 on the other.

Which tarry residue from wood smoke builds up inside chimneys and can catch fire?

Creosote forms when smoke cools and condenses on the flue, and a chimney fire can grow hot enough to set the rest of the house alight.

Fires that start in which part of a house tend to spread farther than those starting anywhere else?

The garage often holds flammable liquids and power tools, so US fire officials recommend a self-closing, fire-rated door between it and the house.

Which term describes the self-feeding overheating that makes lithium-ion batteries catch fire?

Thermal runaway is why laptop batteries from several big brands were recalled in 2006 and why US rules restrict how such batteries travel on aircraft.

What do firefighters call the explosive burst when air suddenly reaches a smouldering, sealed room?

Backdraft can be set off simply by opening a door or breaking a window on a fire that has used up most of its air.

The National Park Service says nearly 85 percent of America's forest and brush fires are started by what?

Humans start them through campfires left unattended, burning debris, equipment sparks and arson, while lightning is one of only two natural causes.

Which material, finer than kindling, catches the first spark when a campfire is lit?

Tinder catches the first spark and lights the kindling, which in turn sets the bulk of the firewood burning.

London's Grenfell Tower fire of 2017 raced up the outside of the block through which newly added feature?

Wall cladding had been fitted in a 2015–16 renovation to improve insulation and appearance; the blaze, which killed 72 people, began in a fourth-floor fridge-freezer.

What ignited the foam-lined walls of Rhode Island's Station nightclub in 2003, killing 100 concertgoers?

Indoor pyrotechnics set off by the tour manager of the band Great White lit the soundproofing foam, and he later pleaded guilty to 100 counts of involuntary manslaughter.

Which colour of flag names the US National Weather Service warning for fast-spreading fire weather?

Red flag warnings go out when drought, very low humidity and strong or erratic winds combine, and an 'extreme' grade was added in 2019.

Under the Scouts BSA Firem'n Chit, which check must a campfire pass before a Scout may walk away from it?

The cold-out test confirms the fire is completely out, and the card also requires water or a shovel to be kept within reach and the fire to be watched at all times.

London's King's Cross fire of 1987, which killed 31 people, began beneath which wooden station fixture?

An escalator caught light from a dropped match, and the Underground went on to replace every wooden one, retiring the last in 2014.

What do fire agencies call the cleared buffer, often 100 feet deep, kept around a house in fire country?

Defensible space gives crews a safer area to work from, and firefighters sometimes will not try to save a home that lacks it.

The big top in the 1944 Hartford circus fire had been waterproofed with gasoline and which wax?

Paraffin dissolved in gasoline was a common way to waterproof canvas at the time, and as the tent burned it rained down molten on the crowd.

Which fittings were standardised across America after out-of-town crews proved little help at Baltimore's 1904 fire?

Hose couplings came in more than 600 sizes across America, so many crews sent from other cities found their hoses would not fit Baltimore's hydrants.

The safety match, which lights only on its own box, was devised in 1844 by Gustaf Erik Pasch of which country?

Sweden went on to hold a near-monopoly on safety matches from its factories in Jönköping; the trick was moving the red phosphorus from the match head to the box.

Which chemist's 1815 safety lamp let coal miners carry a flame without igniting explosive firedamp gas?

Humphry Davy wrapped the flame in fine wire gauze, which lets air in but is too fine for the flame to pass through and light the gas outside.

The UL safety mark on electrical goods dates from a testing bureau set up in 1894; what does its 'U' stand for?

Underwriters Laboratories was founded by William Henry Merrill, an electrical inspector who had checked the wiring at Chicago's 1893 World's Fair.

Which emergency number is built into the GSM mobile standard and works in every European Union country?

112 can be dialled from a GSM phone even when the handset is locked, and in North America the network simply forwards the call to 911.

In the first-response fire mnemonic RACE, which sets the order of actions, what does the letter R stand for?

Rescue comes first, for anyone in immediate danger, followed by raising the alarm and then confining the fire by shutting nearby doors and windows.

In 18th-century London, a 'fire mark' plaque on a house front showed it was protected by which kind of firm?

An insurer ran its own fire brigade in those days, though the tale that crews let unmarked buildings burn is an urban myth.

Which term names the lowest temperature at which a liquid gives off enough vapour to ignite from a spark?

Flash point is why petrol is so much easier to set alight than diesel: petrol gives off ignitable vapour far below freezing, diesel only above about 52 degrees Celsius.

Which door fitting was invented after 183 children died at a bolted door in Sunderland in 1883?

The panic bar, patented by Robert Alexander Briggs in 1892 after the Victoria Hall disaster, lets a crowd open an exit simply by pushing against it.

NFPA 101, a widely adopted US standard that grew from early rules on building exits, goes by which name?

Life Safety Code grew out of the NFPA's Committee on Safety to Life, formed in 1913, two years after New York's Triangle Shirtwaist factory fire.

What does Ready.gov say to place in front of a fireplace to stop rolling logs and catch flying sparks?

A heavy screen should cover the whole opening, and the fire must be completely out before anyone leaves the house or goes to bed.

What daily care does the US Fire Administration say stops a real Christmas tree becoming a fire risk?

Watering it matters because a dry Christmas tree can burn very hot and very fast, and the tree should never be allowed to block an exit.