WITH house fires more prevalent in winter, Fire and Rescue NSW firefighters are warning Wagga residents to be prepared and implement the necessary safety precautions.
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Fire and Rescue NSW Turvey Park Station Officer Justin Bentley said the message to residents is to make sure their smoke alarms are working and test them regularly.
"You replace the batteries at the start of winter when you change your clocks for daylight saving and if it's hardwired you still replace the battery," he said.
Mr Bentley said smoke alarms are your best chance of waking up if a fire ignites while you are sleeping.
"Smoke alarms are designed at a pitch and rate to disturb you and wake you from a heavy sleep. If you're dead to the world, that pitch, tone and rate will wake you up," Mr Bentley said.
Your chances of waking up without an alarm, are slim.
"Most people die well before the fire gets them," Mr Bentley said.
"It can happen to anybody and it happens to the most unexpected people, it happens and the whole; 'I don't need to worry about that, I will wake up', is not true.
"If you're asleep, your house catches fire and the smoke starts to build slowly before the fire fully evolves the smoke, along with the fumes that are given off by the fire from all the modern-day chemicals we use, when you start breathing them in they don't actually aggravate you to wake you up, the more you breathe the deeper into sleep you go and you won't wake up."
Kitchen fires and fires started by heaters are another two common cases firefighters see in wintertime.
"At winter we do see a prevalence in the rise of house fires because people are inside, they're drying clothes and those sorts of things," Mr Bentley said.
"We say, keep it a metre from the heater, so if they're drying clothes in front of heaters, have the rack at least a metre back and try not to have too much clutter around it."
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"If you have to leave for any reason, turn it all off," Mr Bentley said.
"If you find your kitchen on fire, your chances of putting it out yourself are very minimal and if you haven't noticed it occur straight away, if you've walked away and you come back and your stove is on fire and its gotten into your kitchen cupboards, it's going to be hard to put out."
Mr Bentley said as soon as a fire begins to escalate, house occupants need to call triple zero and remove themselves from the house immediately.
"Get everyone outside and do not go back inside. Make yourself very prominent outside on the street so we can see you. And, have an escape plan, especially if you've got smaller children or a frail family member in the house," he said.
"You need to know who's getting that person, who is calling triple zero. Get the family on the same page."
Mr Bentley said fire can grow from a small fire to the entire house within three to five minutes.
"In that three to five minutes there's that much smoke and toxic gases, you've already been knocked unconscious before you can get outside," he said.
Fire and Rescue NSW firefighters can help residents with any questions they may have through the Home Fire Safety visit.
The program also offers elderly residents to request for a firefighter to go to their homes and change their smoke alarms for them.
To organise a visit contact your local station.
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