Red Embers

Many dread renovations. I know I do. I’m right in the middle of a good sized one. We’re moving rooms around to make the house more livable, and it’s been quite a chore. We have a duplex, and my parents own the other unit in the building, so it’s been a joint effort to modernize a building that has seen three additions, a new foundation and several changes over its more than 75 years of service. Dad grew up in the house and so did I, so it’s more than “just a house.” It’s our home… our little chunk of the American Dream. As you can imagine, there are parts of the building that are one age, another section another and so on. This makes for quite a mix where utilities are concerned. Dad and I are both plumbers, so at least that part of the house has grown with the times (stopping just short of the junk that passes for plumbing today).

We are not, however, electricians, and it shows. My daughters want fans in their bedrooms. My wife wants undercounter lighting in the new kitchen. I just want a place to park my laptop that doesn’t share its space with the dinner dishes. Rick doesn’t really care, but he’s the accessory noise maker in the house - everyone has one of those. He likes loud music, loud video games and loud video games with loud music in them. So, we care… we’re considering how much trouble a sound-proof vault would be to install. Barring that, we’ll just give him a place he can call his own as well.

All of those things are important and will add to our happiness. Other folks renovate as well, for much the same reasons. As I look around my local area and conduct rental inspections, it never ceases to amaze me the amount of money that is spent every year in major repairs and remodeling that doesn’t include updating the fire protection system. Bedrooms are enlarged, rearranged completely and new light fixtures with adjoining bathrooms are installed. But when you look up, the only thing you see on the ceiling is the sparkling new ceiling fan (with remote control, auto reverse, five speed settings and a dimmer for the light). No smoke detector mars the ceilingscape. Ask them why they did all of those renovations and didn’t add a smoke detector, and many of the rental unit owners will say, “This bedroom’s not required to have a smoke detector… The house was built in the 1970’s.” Then he brings me to the door to the hall, points outside and says, “We’re covered… We have one out here.” It’s hard to argue with that logic. Up on the ceiling in the hallway sits a tired, 10 year-old battery operated smoke detector.

As I said, we’re doing some pretty extensive renovations, but we can’t renovate past 50% of the value of the house due to our building being below a point on a measuring stick and being in a tidal flood plain. We could have put all of our renovation money into making the house as slick and neat as we could, and we’ll do that with the exception of about $500.00. That’s how much it’s going to cost us to upgrade the smoke detector system in the house to a fully hardwired, with battery backup, interconnected system. It’s worth every penny, and our electrician is doing it while he’s completing all of the other challenges we’ve set on his plate. In addition to brand new smoke detectors, the common areas will also get combination smoke and carbon monoxide detectors. With a full natural gas house, it’s without question the proper thing to do. Even being plumbers, we’re not perfect, and neither is technology.

So, considering redoing that old bedroom? Why not add a hardwired smoke detector while you’ve got the drywall all down?

Everyone likes toys. Firefighters are known globally for their love of big kid toys. If it’s new, we’ve got to have one (at least). Even with bad toys you can usually come up with something good to say about them. But some novelties, marketed like toys, are causing quite a ruckus in the fire service community. So much so in fact that during National Arson Awareness Week, the United States Fire Administration is focusing on a toy novelty that kids are finding more than a little attractive. The theme for this year’s Arson Awareness Week, which runs from today until this weekend, is “Toylike Lighters – Playing with Fire.”They’re out there and they look innocent. They look like little $0.50 trinkets from a supermarket gumball machine. That cute doggie she has her diary key on… That toy skateboard your son is doing finger tricks with, could in actuality be a butane lighter.

These things are causing fires at unprecedented rates for new fire starting devices. In fact, it’s so bad that the National Fire Incident Reporting System (NFIRS) is collecting fire cause data specifically focusing on fires started with toy novelty lighters. Data already proves that children using lighters cause as many fires as matches. In fact, some studies have shown that lighters are the preferred ignition source.

Now you might not even be able to tell that you child is in possession of a lighter.

Who would ever expect a skateboard that makes fire? Lighters that look like a butterfly or a poker chip are out there where our kids can put their hands on them.

Fires caused by children playing with fire starting devices are called child-play fires. This is the technical term. Most kids that start fires, indeed a great majority of them, had no intention of harming anyone or anything beyond what they burned initially. Kids have a really hard time understanding the dynamics of combustion, and the speed of fire spread, especially when combustibles are nearby. In 2002 there were approximately 13,900 fires started by kids playing with fire. That’s a one-year total. Those fires caused $339 million in direct damage, 1,250 civilian injuries, and sadly 210 civilian fire deaths (many times to themselves or family members). Another thing that adults don’t often know is that the median age (average) of the juvenile fire setter is 5 years-old. That’s no typo. Even worse, the median age for fatal fire victims of child-play fires is 4 years old. They’re killing their peers. The median age for injuries in nonfatal juvenile arson fires is the middle to late teens. So it’s the little ones that pay the ultimate price when little kids start fires.

I encourage all of my readers to visit this site: http://www.usfa.dhs.gov/fireservice/subjects/arson/arson_awareness.shtm

Print out the Arson Awareness Week Media Kit and share it with your schools and nursery schools! That’s right, the nursery school moms and dads need to know and share this information.

There can be no question about fire’s attraction to kids. As we become more technologically advanced, it seems that kids are even more drawn to fire. Perhaps it is that our society has become so sterile that our children don’t really learn how important it is to fear and stay away from fire. They don’t have to empty the coal pail as our forebearers did. As if we already didn’t have enough to do, now we have to double check our children’s toys. Make sure there’s not a torch in the toybox next to the toy fire extinguisher… or is it?

It came over the radio as a blue arc flame coming from an electrical outlet in the living room. We arrived to no fire, but a scary scene. The bright white walls were scorched and scarred black under the front window - the focal point of the living room. We all have them. The electrical outlet that’s just a tick loose. It pushes when you put a plug into it, and pulls out when you disconnect. You don’t think much of it, do you? I have to admit that I’ve neglected some of my own, but I checked them all as soon as I got home today.

The homeowner was lucky. First of all she had no furniture in front of the outlet. Secondly, she didn’t try to pull the plug back out when she plugged the stereo in and it flashed. When I was finished with the investigation, it was obvious what caused the short circuit that could have burnt her house down. These are my favorite types of investigations. There’s actually enough material left to make a good determination. The circuit in question also fed several other outlets, including an outside outlet. Today that would have been a ground fault protected circuit, but that’s a blog for another day. The hot wire was strip connected in series into the outlet, so the outlet being loose caused a serious problem. Every time the owner or an occupant plugged in something, the outlet moved, the wire rocked in it’s contact channel and the screw securing the wire to the outlet loosened a micron. This happened over about 25 years until today the outlet rocked against the steel electrical box inside the wall and it shorted. The outlet blew off it’s bottom end and threw a blue flame about a foot and a half into the room. The owner was terrified, but she appparently wasn’t terrified enough not to reset the breaker and try to give the outlet power again. Don’t ask me why she would do such a thing, but that’s what happened. Lo and behold, another big arc occurred before the breaker once again tripped out.

The fire engine company arrived and determined with the thermal imaging camera that nothing had caught fire inside the wall, then the guys turned the scene over to me for investigation. The burnt out outlet told me a couple of things that I want to share with you.

First, never ever restore power to a component that has arced without replacing the failed piece. It’s not like a headache. Problems with electrical parts do not fix themselves in my experience, and arc flashing is fatal to whatever took the high energy electrical hit. Have your electrician go over your system in it’s entirety before restoring power to any section that suffered a failure of any kind.

Secondly, if you have any electrical outlets or switches that are loose, broken or seem to intermittently cause problems, get them fixed now. Don’t wait to let the lightning out of the clouds. All it takes is the right (or wrong) move to begin an arc flash incident and serious injury or property damage can occur. The same goes for loose boxes, broken switch and outlet plates and non-working GFI outlets.

Electrical wiring and contacts don’t like to come loose. One thing that always comes back to me whenever I talk about electricity is that you can compare it to water, except that you can see the water. Electrical wires are the pipes that electrical current passes through. You wouldn’t leave a leaking faucet or loose toilet go for very long. Think the same way about your electrical system.

Finally, if you find loose cover plates on your electrical outlets and you feel comfortable doing a little work on your own, get that screwdriver out and get to work. Just a little twist to tighten up those plates could make all the difference in the world.

OK, so you all know I live at the seashore, and I’m a fire chief and that I’m a fire inspector by trade (at least my current trade). I was relaxing at home… OK, I was taking a 30 minute breather at home on Saturday after a long class, but that’s not important. What I observed was though. Boat trailers were everywhere. The water is warming up and flounder season is right around the corner. It’s my understanding that the black drum are starting to bite in the Delaware. So the boats are getting fresh coats of bottom paint and new registration stickers. The motors are tuned up and ready for good times on the high seas. But I wonder what else has been done to prepare the boats, and indeed the occupants, for the summer season.

Have the life jackets been taken out? What shape are they in after winter storage? Can they be relied upon to keep a head above water long enough for help to arrive? What rules are applied to passengers in the boats? Our fireboat drove by today, and it’s still looking a bit rough from the dock pounding it took last summer. But I know that all the firemen’s life jackets are in better shape. They are each assigned and the department engineer inspects them about once a month. Odds are that our guys won’t need their life jackets. Odds are that most others won’t either, but does that mean they’re OK stowed in the mildewy hold of the boat? Shouldn’t you take them out and make sure they’re servicable. It will only cost a little time and not even a fraction of what you paid the mechanic to tune up the motor.

Hmmm… Look at that under the pile of brown spotted life jackets! It’s the fire extinguisher. You wondered where that got to when the mount broke on it last August, didn’t you? The gauge looks good. But is the dry chemical inside still powdery? It might cost all of $20.00 to get that serviced next time you run into town. You think you can afford that? After all you just replaced all of your tackle in anticipation of a banner fishing season! What about fixing that mount so you can actually find the extinguisher if you need it? It’s only a broken screw! The gear case oil cost more than the replacement fastener will.

You checked that mount out didn’t you? What, you found the flare gun? And it’s only out of date by a couple of years! How fortunate! I know, you’d replace it but you don’t know what to do with the old one, and heck, it’s never been shot. A new kit would cost about $60.00. That would almost fill the tank half way. Decisions, decisions! The radio guy already got you for $200.00 for installation of the new antenna.

So, the boats are going in. I wonder how many we’ll have to go help this year. I wonder how many will not return with their owners.

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I never thought myself a blogger, but I was convinced by some that indeed some of my diatribes on the Parenting Club message forums are blogs-in-forum anyway. The only difference between a web log and a forum position statement is that I don’t have to defend my position to anyone. In other words, I can write what comes into my head and read or not read any comments from others as I see fit. Oh, the power! So I’ve decided to name it Red Embers. Corny as the name is, I have a blog account on another blog-place with that same name, but I’ve never written anything there, but it is my hope that as I write here, some of what moves me to write will be read and accepted.

Red Embers isn’t going to remove me from the Parenting Club Forums. I’m still going to give of myself as I have in the past. I have written on fire safety and family life in those forums for more than four years. Now Rod and Dee Dee have given me a place into which I can collect those thoughts and advice, and hopefully I will gain a readership from PC and elsewhere. It’s not that I think I’m the end all and be all of fire and safety knowledge… There’s plenty of that out there coming from smarter people than me. But I think I can offer some unique perspectives, since much of what I do professionally involves single family homes and inspections in those places. I see a lot of things that most people in my field don’t get an opportunity look at and be scared about. Most fire inspectors ply their trade in business uses and in multiple family dwellings where there are written rules that everyone must follow. The fact is that most civilian fire fatalities occur in one and two family dwellings. Even sadder is the fact that many of those fatalities are children.

I also spent 10 years as a full-time, paid EMT, and some of what I’ll bring to the blog-sphere will relate to my experiences working with families in that capacity. Moms and dads of all ages fear for the safety of their children. Hopefully I’ll be able to lean upon my experience as a father of over 23 years and a first responder for almost 30, and put into words and advice some of the topics that all parents are concerned about.

I have so many ideas, but as of now I don’t know where this will lead me. Hopefully we’ll all be pleasantly surprised. While I’ve read and am a member of many fire service related web sites and forums, I rarely participate in them. I prefer instead to spend my free time in non-fire related pursuits like Parenting Club. It’s not that I don’t have anything of value to add to the professional sites, it’s just that after spending eight hours of every day in service, I much enjoy the diversion that places like PC provide. The last time I looked, there wasn’t anyone doing just what Red Embers will do. That is to provide timely, professional fire and general safety advice to parents and families.

I have committed to this service, and hope that the readers will get something out of what I have to say. I know that I’ll never be short topics – I’ve already got a growing list. I will try not to make my writing too dry, and I’ll do my best to provide useful and topical links within my blog. I hope everyone looks forward to this as much as I do.