Historic Virginia Chapter Blog

Home Fires are flaring up!

We all want to help safeguard our homes against disasters. But most Americans are unaware that the most common disaster is also highly preventable. It doesn’t matter if you live on the coast or the prairie, the mountains or a flood plain, in the city or on a farm, a home fire can happen anywhere to anyone, and Historic Virginia Chapter would like to help you learn to how to tame the flame.

The toll of home fires on American families and communities is staggering.  According to the U.S. Fire Administration, each year nearly 400,000 families are affected by home fires.  A home fire is approximately reported every 80 seconds, and someone dies from a home fire every 204 minutes. Young children are the most at risk as fire is the leading cause of unintentional death for those under the age of five. Last year the Historic Virginia Chapter responded to 67 home fires in Amherst, Appomattox, Bedford Campbell and Lynchburg. Thats a 294 percent increase since 2000!!!

While the American Red Cross will always be there to provide relief from a disaster, we are also in communities every day ready to help you prevent and prepare for fires in your own home.  The Red Cross recommends you take these three initial steps to reduce your risk from home fires:

1. Install smoke alarms on every level of your home and maintain them as recommended
2. Create a family escape plan so that you and your family can get to safety in the event of a fire
3. Learn how to help prevent home fires in your home by visiting www.redcross.org/homefires or by contacting Disaster Services Director, Doug Eggleston at 1-800-625-6680

Many people don’t realize that when the local fire department responds to a home fire, the Red Cross also answers the call. Our Red Cross heroes are on call 24-hours a day, seven days a week, often leaving behind family and friends to help meet the emergency needs of those affected by fire – shelter, food and medications. But our volunteers can’t answer the call without your support. You can help the Red Cross continue to be ready to respond and help fire victims by making a financial contribution to the Historic Virginia Chapter today. You can even donate online right now. We need your support to continue to serve your community!

The Red Cross is here to help you prevent and prepare for home fire, and with your continued support, we will be there to help when the tragedy of home fires touch our community. With your help, we can tame the flame in Central Virginia.

This entry was posted on Saturday, January 5th, 2008 at 10:46 pm and is filed under Disaster Services. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.