Fire Safety at Home

Most of the fires we respond to start the same handful of ways: heating equipment, escaped brush piles, and homes without working smoke alarms. The guidance below is the same advice we would give you across the kitchen table. A few minutes of prevention beats any fire truck.

Smoke and Carbon Monoxide Alarms

Working smoke alarms cut the risk of dying in a home fire roughly in half. They are the cheapest protection you can buy.

• Put a smoke alarm in every bedroom, outside each sleeping area, and on every level of the home.
• Test each alarm once a month with the test button.
• Replace batteries once a year, or use 10-year sealed-battery alarms and skip the ladder trips.
• Replace the whole alarm every 10 years. The date is printed on the back.
• If you heat with propane, wood, or have an attached garage, add a carbon monoxide alarm outside sleeping areas.

Heating Season

Heating equipment is a leading cause of winter house fires, and nearly all of those fires are preventable.

Burning Brush Piles

Escaped debris burns are one of the most common wildfire causes in the Ozarks. Before you light anything, check whether Boone County is under a burn ban:

If burning is allowed, a safe burn looks like this:

• Log your burn with Central Dispatch first: 870-741-9100. They will ask for your name, your telephone number, and the address of the burn. Giving dispatch these basics ahead of time really matters: if the fire gets out of control and you call back, or if someone sees your smoke and reports it as an emergency, dispatch already knows what is burning and who is responsible. That saves precious time and emergency resources.
• Pick a calm, damp day. Never burn when it is windy or when vegetation is dry.
• Clear down to bare soil for at least 10 feet around the pile.
• Keep the pile small and feed it gradually rather than lighting one giant pile.
• Stay well away from structures, fences, vehicles, and overhead power lines.
• Have water and a shovel or rake within reach the whole time.
• Never leave the fire unattended, even for a few minutes.
• Let your neighbors know before you burn so smoke does not trigger a 911 call.
• Drown it, stir it, and drown it again. Leave only when it is cold to the touch.
• If the fire escapes, call 911 immediately. Do not wait to see if you can catch it.

Live conditions, the forecast, and fire weather warnings for our district are on the Weather & Fire Danger page.

Help Us Find You

When you call 911, the minutes we spend hunting for your driveway are minutes we are not fighting the fire. In a rural district like ours, a visible address is real protection for your home and family.

• Post your 911 address at the road, at the entrance to your driveway, not just on the house.
• Use reflective numbers at least 3 inches tall, 4 inches is better, on a contrasting background.
• Make sure the numbers are readable from both directions of travel, day and night.
• Trim brush and grass around the sign every year so it stays visible.
• If your house number is on your mailbox, remember mailboxes can sit across the road or in a cluster. A sign at the driveway itself removes the guesswork.
• Long driveway? Keep it at least 12 feet wide with about 14 feet of overhead clearance so fire apparatus can get in.
• If you have a gate, make sure it opens wide enough for a truck and that family members know how to open it.
• While you wait for us, turn on the porch light. If someone can safely stand at the road and wave us in, that helps more than you would think.

Questions?

Want advice about your own place, or a hand figuring out sign placement or driveway access? Get in touch. We would much rather help you prevent a fire than fight one.