Safe Cooking Tips

You can fix red eyed gravy and country ham?  Great.  You can feed a lot of hungry Firefighters.  Be sure to follow these rules while cooking anywhere.  Cook in the kitchen.  Avoid cooking somepleace other than the kitchen.

1. Keep An Eye On The Stove. Cooking leads to fires if they are not tended constantly.
2. Don't get your Apron Too Close. Loose clothing catches fire if exposed to heat.
3. Watch Children in the Kitchen! Be safety minded around children, especially in the kitchen.  You know how they love to investigate. Keep children away from the cooking area. They are simply curious. Turn pot and pan handles inward so they won't be pulled from the stove.
4. Clean Up Afterwards. Keep all cooking surfaces clean. Put anything that can burn away from the heat.

Electricity Ouchies!

Electricity can be our best friend: making coffee, cooking grits, listening to classic country on a lazy Saturday.We depend on electricity for everything.  Learn these "watch-outs" for electricity:

1. Extension Cords: Don't overload them.  Don't put too many cords into them.  Don't run them under rugs.
2. Fit Them. Replace it before it burns your house down.
3. Fuse Box. Use proper size fuses in your fuse box. Never use homemade "jumpers". Never use pennies. Those can leave you with a burn shell of a house.

Matches and Lighters

Matches and lighters can be deadly in the hands of a child. Use child-resistant lighters. Store all matches and lighters up high, preferably in a locked cabinet.

Working Smoke Detectors [see our Jr. Firefighter Page] Click here.

1. Install a Smoke Detector On Each Level of your house.
2. Install a Smoke Detector In Each Living Area and Bedroom.
3. Test. Test them monthly and install new batteries every time the time changes, or once a year.
4. Good for Ten Years. Replace smoke detectors after 10 years.

Stop, Drop and Roll

If your clothes catch fire...stop where you are, drop to the ground, cover your face with your hands and roll over and over. This will smother the flames.

Keep Smoke Detectors in Working Order and Know How to Escape Develop at least two different escape routes and practice them with the entire family.  Plan An Escape. Plan escape routes.  Practice leaving your home.  Have one place to meet. Go to your neighbor's house and call 911. Always Help. "Do unto others what you would have done unto you."

Fire Science

The fighting of fire is a science.  New ideas and new technologies can be found everywhere in the firefighting profession.  Trying to put them into actual practice is the hard part.  At Fort Blackmore, we try to take ideas we have learned about the behavior of fire and apply those thoughts to the fire ground.  Both Structure Fires and Wildland Fires can be approached using a set of protocols that were developed long ago by firefighters who knew a lot more about firefighting than we will ever know. However, we can learn from them.  To the Fire Service, and its continuing educational effort, we dedicate this page.

Wildland Fires

U.S. Bureau of Land Management,
Office of Public Affairs
1849 C Street, Room 406-LS
Washington, DC 20240
Phone: (202) 452-5125
Fax: (202) 452-5124

Joint Fire Science Plan Link Here

Blurb On Fire Science as it concerns the JFSP

"An expanded fuels management program cannot wait until perfect knowledge about fuels, fire behavior and ecosystem functions exists, because the current risk of catastrophic wildland fire is so great. The Joint Fire Science Program will provide a suite of methods for systematic monitoring and evaluation of changing fuels, fire and other treatment effects, and fire behavior conditions. These activities will provide the basis for adaptive management decisions to steadily refine and improve fuels management programs and integrate this work into overall land and resource management goals, now and in the future." Link here.

Structure Fires
 

A Structure Fire is a fire that is inside a house or business building.  The different houses might be single family houses, Townhouses, Rowhouses, Apartments, High-Rises, and Malls. Structure fires should not be confused with vehicle fires or Wildland Fires or any other fire that is "outside".  A structure fire is always "inside". A fire department will send firefighters, EMTs, engines, ladder trucks, and tankers. Each one of these will have an assignment that they need to do when they arrive on-scene.

A fire department will send:

• Firefighters -  to help stop the spread of the flames.  They might also be EMTs so that they can help any fictims that might have burns or might have breathed in some smoke
• EMTs  - to help the victims with medical or trauma emergencies.  These EMTs might not be firefighters.  However, most large cities have Firefighter-Paramedics that ride the trucks.  They arrive first to help any victims.
• Engines - to provide water and water pressure and lots of equipment on-scene. Firefighters that ride these Engines are often called "Jakes".  They go inside with their buddies to knock the fire down, keep the fire from spreading, and provide basic emergency medical care to the victims.
• Ladder trucks - to provide tall ladders and other tools to help, and tankers.
• Tankers - to help provide water and water pressure to the fire ground.  Big cities rely on water pressure from water pipes buried underground.  Rural departments and Suburban departments might be a long way from a water supply.  So, they have to take some of their water with them.

Structures are divided into five construction types: They are listed from the least combustible to most combustible:

• Type I: Fire Resistant; Hi-Rises; Fire resistant; an example would be "steel construction".
• Type II: Non-Combustible; Strip Malls, Shopping Malls. Roofs have steel rafters.
• Type III: Ordinary Construction: Rowhouses; brick and mortar, wood floors.
• Type IV: Heavy Timber: Churches; community buildings; large wooden beams hold it up.
• Type V: Wood Frame: Family Houses, Townhouses, Apartments with four or less floors.

Structure Fire - Fire Sciences Links

• The United States Fire Academy is a good place to start.
• An Article on USFA Structure Fire Report for 2000 from Fire Chief
• Wikipedia Definition of a Structure Fire
• Structure Fire Photos Link
• Firefighting Tactics
• Fire & Emergency Response
• Texas State Fire Marshall
• Strike Technology: Fire Streams
• Institute of Fire Engineers
• Fire Streams and Drafting: Photos
• Fire Service Training
• Firehouse Downloads: Training
• Wikipedia: Firefighting Terminology
• Wikipedia: Fire Code Safety
• Fire Engineering OnLine Mag
• Fire & Electrical Codes: NFPA or Standards: Here
• Virginia State Fire Marshall's Office
• Code of Virginia: Burning of a Dwelling
• UVA Wise Fire Prevention Policies Site

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Last Edited on 12/10/2008