GUEST SPEAKER - ADRIENNE ANSON FROM THE CFA
Chair, Gordon Curran introduced guest speaker Adrienne Anson from the CFA. Adrienne gave Rotarians a shortened, but nonetheless powerful version of her usual session on fire prevention in the home. Adrienne explained that the groups of people most at risk from fires are the elderly, those with poor mobility, hoarders and people who have cluttered homes and young mums. In the last two months there have been 308 preventable house fires in Victoria. 30% of fires are caused from unattended cooking. Winter is the worst season for fires which are caused by heaters, items being left too close to heaters, clothes dryers and people heating wheat packs in the microwave.
In order for a fire to burn it needs 3 things - oxygen, fuel and a heat source. Adrienne quipped fires are started by three sources - men, women and children.
She spoke of the surprisingly large number of people who are hoarders and die in house fires. Excessive clutter not only presents a danger to home owners and occupiers but also the emergency service personal, particularly fire fighters. Most hoarders are over 50 years of age. If a room is too cluttered to be used for its intended purpose then that can be classified as hoarding. 77% of hoarders are men and many of them have hoarding problems in their sheds. If a house is cluttered then the whole house will burn, however if a house has no clutter then generally a fire will be contained to the room in which the fire started. Adrienne asked Rotarians who knew of anyone with a cluttered home to make sure entrances and exits had clear pathways and their smoke alarms were checked regularly and working.
A working smoke detector is your best friend and your second best friend is a fire blanket - if you don’t have either of them make sure you have both in your home. Neither are expensive items. A small powder filled fire extinguisher is also a worthwhile item to have in your home. Make sure when you purchase a fire blanket and extinguisher that you do not mount them between the stove and the sink - they must be accessible if a fire breaks out on the stove. Also is you are cooking make sure you have the lid of the pot nearby. The Fire Brigade takes approximately 8 minutes to get to a house fire in Warrnambool.