Is your basement sufficiently protected from basement fires? Read on to learn how you can proactively prevent basement fires. Flooding and water damage are not the only threats to basements. Since the space is often used to store heat-generating equipment, it remains more vulnerable to fire accidents thanseveral other parts of your home. To make things worse, many basements don’t even haveemergency exits. Thus, the number of deaths caused by flames, fire, or smoke in the US increased from 3,362 in 2015 to 3,515 in 2016 to 3,645 in 2017, according to the US Fire Administration. Follow these steps to prevent basement fires: Install Warning Devices The most daunting fact about fire accidents is that they’re unpredictable, which is why you need to act proactively to prevent it. Among the most effective ways to prevent a basement fire from getting worse is detecting them early. That’s exactly what warning devices, such as smoke alarms, help you with. Most of us think that flames are the most detrimental when it comes to fire accidents. That’s not true. The smoke generated from a fire spreads faster and much wider than the flames and happens to be the most harmful. Even before a fire reaches higher floors or other rooms, smoke will make its way to all other parts of your home, affecting anyone who’s present there. Yet, it’s often too late when smoke spreads to areas where people are present. Installing a smoke alarmin your basement is a tremendous solution that detects smoke as soon as it senses it around. Upon detecting the smoke, the loud alarm willimmediately go off, informing you about potential fire during its earliest stages. This way, you and your family will have ample time to react, extinguish the fire, or escape before the fire spreads to the rest of the house. Nothing proves more valuable than a smoke alarm to alert you of potential fire when you’re sleeping at night. Proper Housekeeping Housekeeping involves minimizing the objects that can catch fire should a fire start in your basement. Unfinished basements are often cluttered with unused items and even trash, which create perfect conditions to turn your house into a massive bonfire. Keep eliminating trash from your basement and store oil rags and other flammable materials in an airtight container. If you have a finished basement, avoid the use of any flammable materials there. For example, mattresses produced after 1990 are way more flame-resistant than older models, so be sure to check the manufacturing date of mattresses and other major items you’re using in the basement. Fire Resistant Homes Consider making your home, including your basement, fire resistant. This involves having fire extinguishers in various easy-to-reach locations of your home, applying fire-proof paint, installing fire doors that will prevent fires from spreading to other rooms, and multiple fire escapes, especially in your basement. Electrical wires are often a major cause of residential fires, so keep examining the electric panels from time to time. Preventing fires is not that hard if you keep our advice in mind. However, if you ever experience a basement fire, contact S.T.O.P.for immediate fire restoration.