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Home Hazard Checklist

Home Hazard Hunt

Introduction
Resources
How-To

Introduction
Do you have a safe home? Or are their “hidden” dangers that could easily start a fire?

Help your family members become Hazard Detectives who can help keep your house free of fire hazards. Help them learn what to look for in each room of the house. The children are the finders who can spot hazards. The adults are the fixers who can remove the hazard. That might be as simple as moving curtains so they do not touch a hot radiator. Or, it may mean making sure gasoline is stored in a proper container, out of the house and away from
any heat source.

Resources To Use
Home Hazard Hunt Game (Miki’s brother’s house)
Home Hazard Checklist

How-To
• Get your children involved in helping make your home a Home Safe Home.

• Play the Home Hazard Hunt game together as you discuss why different things in the home can be fire hazards, even things that don’t seem dangerous – a couch, curtains, a stack of newspapers. (The game includes an index that will help children identify things that are hazards and why.)

• Turn your kids into a Home Hazard Hunt Patrol. It is their job to look for things that could be fire hazards and report them to you or another adult family member. There may be some things they can help with. You will tell them which things are safe to help with and you will show them what to do. For example, they might help you remove a pile of newspapers or magazines from the living room or the basement.

• Remember to do routine checks of your home, garage, shed and all other areas near your home that could contain fire hazards.

Another Lesson: Things that Burn
There are many things in and around your home that are not on fire but can still burn children very badly.

Help your kids learn about the “hidden burners” so they can stay safe and help younger brothers and sisters stay safe. The message here is that you don’t have to have a flame to get a bad burn.

Be safe and have adults handle anything that could be a burn danger for you. Here is a list of household dangers to discuss with kids. Work with them to add this list.

• Hot surfaces that don’t look hot. Unplugged irons that have just been used or electric burners or stoves that are still hot.

• Hot foods. Foods that come out of the microwave, or the oven, can be steaming hot and burn your mouth and skin even if they don’t look hot (baked potatoes, macaroni and cheese, a fruit pie).

• Hot liquids (coffee, soups, boiling water, hot cocoa).

• Steam. Microwave popcorn is a good example. The bag has trapped steam while it cooked. The hot steam can easily burn your hands and face. Only adults should remove foods like this from the microwave.

• Chemicals. Common household cleaners with bleach or ammonia can burn eyes and skin.

• Hot sand on bare feet. Wear sandals when you walk on the beach.

• The sun. Wear a hat and put on sunscreen. Remember you need to put on more sunscreen after you swim or take a shower.

 

 

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This web site is brought to you in the interest of public safety and education by State Farm Insurance Companies, in partnership with the International Association of Fire Fighters and the International Association of Fire Chiefs.