Avoiding Inferno

By G.L. John Clavel Haro La Purisima joins the Bureau of Fire Protection in the observance of the 46th Fire Prevention Month with the theme:Makiisa, Makialam at Makipagtulungan upang Sunog ay Maiwasan . The Little Heroine of Castlewood, a story from the Classic Collection of Readers Digest Asia last December 2011, tells a story of a 14-year-old girl who fought an inferno to save the lives of her brothers, sisters and her very self. Second- and third-degree burns covered more than 80 percent of her body. She became a hero having saved the lives of her brothers and sisters - and of course, for not giving up in saving her life after the tremendous burns she acquired from the incident. Does becoming a hero require you to endanger your life? Not necessarily. You become a hero when you start doing little things in preventing incidents like fire from happening. March is Fire Prevention Month. This entails a month-long activity that would remind us of the fire prevention measures that we must always observe in order for us to avoid fire incidents that might kill the lives of our loved ones and things that we should do in case of fire. Here are some of the fire prevention tips (cited from an internet article) that you may follow: Use, store, and maintain properly all your electrical appliances. Unplug electrical appliance when not in use. Make sure that your gas stoves and LPG tanks are properly maintained. Keep flammable materials out of childrens reach. Store them properly. Avoid smoking indoors and make sure that your cigarettes butts are fully extinguished before discarding. Keep flammable objects from stoves and other heating devices. Observe vigilance when cooking.

What to do in case of fire? Extinguish small fires by covering the flame with non-flammable objects like pot cover or a dampened towel or blanket. Use only water when the cause of fire is non-electrical. If the fire gets out of hand, call the nearest fire station as soon as possible. Escape quickly. Dont mind you appliances, mind your life first. Create an escape plan beforehand; each room should have at least two easily accessible escape routes. Avoid suffocation in a smoke-filled room by crawling as close to the ground as possible on hands and knees to the nearest exit. If your clothes catch on fire, stop, drop and roll to extinguish the flames.

Be aware of the things that you should observe in case of fire. But above all, lets all prevent fire from happening as particular as how we prevent ourselves from going to inferno. The fires of hell might be more intense but to suffer hell while still on earth is as painful as it is. You know, why suffer when you know how to prevent it? Remember the clich prevention is better than cure. Be a hero yourself do something to prevent fire for your own sake!