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Kitchen
- Never leave cooking unattended.
- Keep your stove and oven clean.
- Wear close-fitting sleeves when cooking.
- Do not hang curtains or store things over the stove.
- Turn pot handles inward so they can't be knocked off the stove or pulled down by small children.
- If a grease fire starts, carefully slide a lid over the pan to smother the flames, and turn off the burner.
- Never pour water on a grease fire.
- Never leave pot holders on the stove.
Sleeping Areas
- The majority of fatal home fires happen while people are sleeping. So it is extremely important to install smoke alarms and to practice family escape drills.
- Never smoke in bed.
- Install smoke alarms on every level of your home (including the basement) and especially outside every sleeping area. Make sure everyone can hear and recognize the alarm's sound.
- If you sleep with bedroom doors closed, install alarms inside bedrooms, as well.
- Plan and practice two escape routes from each room. If one way out leads through a window above the first floor, make sure you have a way to reach the ground safely.
- Make sure everyone in your family knows the home escape plan, the meeting place, and the phone number of the fire department (9-1-1), which they should call from a neighbour's phone, after escaping from the building.
Workshops, Storage Areas and Outdoors
- If you keep gasoline on hand, store it outside your home or in a detached garage.
- Always store paint and other flammable liquids in their original labelled containers with tight-fitting lids.
- Use and store flammable liquids well away from appliances, heaters, pilot lights, cigarettes, and other sources of heat.
- Have your furnace checked every year by a professional.
- Remove trash from your home. Don't store anything near the furnace or heater.
- Never use gasoline to start a barbeque or campfire. Keep barbeques outside of homes, and away from overhangs and combustibles.
- Before starting your lawnmower, snowblower or motorcycle, move it away from gasoline fumes. Let the motor cool before you refuel.
Living & Family Rooms
- Use extreme caution with cigarettes! Provide large, deep ashtrays for smokers. Check for smouldering cigarettes under cushions of couches and chairs before you go to bed or leave your home.
- Keep portable space heaters at least 3 feet away from anything that can burn. Always turn heaters off when you go to bed or go out. Never leave children alone in a room with a portable heater or woodstove operating.
- Use a metal screen on your fireplace.
- Have your chimney professionally checked once a year and cleaned when necessary.
- Use only the correct fuel for heat: aged wood in fireplaces and woodstoves and only kerosene in kerosene heaters. Refuel a heater in a well-ventilated area, after the heater has cooled.
- Keep lighters and matches up high, preferably in a locked cabinet, where young children can't see or reach them.
- Make sure TVs and stereos have space around them to prevent overheating.

