(Sponsored Post) How to make your home FIRE SAFE this winter!

Do you really know how safe your home is from fire??  When I was asked to write this post I thought "Oh yeah, our house is pretty safe" especially as we've literally just had all our smoke alarms tested and replaced.  The first two things that popped into my head of 'potential dangers' were the iron and my GHD hair straightener's - both of which I will shamefully admit to forgetting to turn off in the past.  Luckily (for that very reason) I have a new fancy shmancy iron and GHD's that both switch themselves off if they are left unused for longer than 10 minutes!!!! 

So really that must make our house a definite low fire risk right???

WRONG!!!

I logged on to the New South Wales Home Fire Safety Audit and I was really quite shocked to discover that actually our home is considered to be a 'high risk' for fire!!  It has been a real eye opener for me as it made me aware of every day things like heaters and tumble dryers that could potentially cause a fire at home!!!

A fire in your home can be one of the most awful (and potentially tragic) things that could possibly ever happen to a family.  It just doesn't bear thinking about, so if you want to find out how 'fire safe' your home is (and I highly recommend you do), then just log into the 

NSW HOME FIRE SAFETY AUDIT  

and follow the steps.  They ask you a few simple questions about your home, your environment, and your lifestyle choices.  Within a few minutes they will not only give your home a fire safety rating but also some very valuable tips on how to improve your understanding of the fire risks in your home and how you can make it safer.

One of the questions asked was "Does your family have an emergency plan of action that you can follow in case of an emergency including fire?"  We didn't!  This was one of those things that just hadn't occurred to me to do.  Luckily you can download one here, which is a great help.  I also decided to chat to Master J and Miss H and explain to them what our smoke alarms were, and what would happen if they were to go off.  I turned them on for a couple of seconds so that they could hear the loud shrieking noise they made (which was met with fits of giggles and hands covering ears).  "So what do you think it means if you hear that noise in the house?" I asked them.   "FIRE FIRE!!" yelled Miss H, jumping up and down in excitement (mmmm, I'm not quite sure she's getting the seriousness of this!!).  "What should you DO if you hear that noise?" I then asked.  "Master J was taking this little lesson much more seriously (and already had his fireman suit on).  "If I hear that noise mummy, I run down the stairs and shout "FIRE FIRE' as loud as I can and then I will run outside and tell everybody else, so they can come and help!"  "Great answer kid" I said.  We did go into it in little more depth, but I was happy that they understood it somewhat anyway.

I'm afraid to say that it wasn't actually too long before they had to practice for real.  A couple of days ago I decided to do a bit of conventional cooking and not use my thermomix, and within 10 minutes of trying to 'lightly fry' some homemade fish fingers I had set the fire alarm off.  Poor Miss L got such a fright she decided to join in with the shrieking and before I could even get to the alarm to switch it off, Master J was literally flying out the front door heading over to the neighbours house yelling "FIRE FIRE" at the top of his voice!!!

I had to chuckle - but at least my lesson had sunk in!

So if you have not done so already MAKE YOUR HOME FIRE SAFE today.  I would truly hate for anything awful to happen to anyone, especially if it could have been prevented.

Disclaimer: This is a sponsored post however all the opinons written are entirely my own.