Fire safety - I would never have thought of that


Think of fire before it starts ~ Unknown


I watched this video on fire safety a couple of weeks ago, and I thought to share it here, although not entirely limited to baby/child safety. I've been wanting to write about fire safety for a while now, especially with our peculiar problem of erratic power supply (a major cause of fire outbreaks). 

I'm  always very concerned about leaving electrical appliances plugged in when not in use (especially the ones that heat up). I did something very silly the other day. I left an electric kettle plugged in while I went to jog in the morning. There had been no power supply the night before, and when it came
back on, I thought I'd take advantage of it. [When you rent 'non-new' houses/flats in Lagos, having functional water heaters in the bathroom is a luxury, even after series of hassles with the property owners/managers]. 

I plugged the electric kettle in for the water to get hot while I hit the road to jog. About half an hour later, I came back to a long WhatsApp message from my roommie warning me about plugging electrical appliances and leaving the house. Just the week before, there had been news of a fire incident in the estate where I live, supposedly caused by electricity surge that blew up some electrical appliances. I initially got defensive when I got the message, but then I realised it was a very stupid thing to do, and could have turned out very dangerous. 

When I stumbled upon the video, I was so surprised about how apparently simple or easy a fire could start from something so 'negligible'...something we (or maybe just I) don't really pay a lot of attention to. We tend to attribute a lot of our fires to electricity outages/fluctuations as well incidents that result from storage of petroleum products, and I'm sure both are true. But then again, do we genuinely know how these fires start, especially that there usually are no investigations after the fires. Heck, there aren't even fire trucks to respond to fires, how much more an investigation following an outbreak. Please see video below:



I don't know that we use a lot of these 9 Volt batteries, or rather, I don't know how common they are here in Nigeria. But it does help to bring our attention to how we place or store things. Some people may be quick to say "how would you not know that you should not store this or that with this or that...", but I really had no idea that storing batteries in this manner could be potentially dangerous or lead to fire outbreaks. That, I think, is one of the lessons for me. 

So watch ye and learn, O thou dear parent/child care giver! 

N/B: This is not the fire post I always wanted to write about. I'll come back to that sometime soon.


Always me!
The Baby Analyst.
Not a doctor, just a financial analyst who loves kids

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