Fire Safety Month: Keep Your Pets Safe! - BlogPaws

Guest post by Blog Manager Robbi Hess

October is National Fire Safety Month and while it is the time of year when safety tips and home evacuation plans are promoted, keeping safe and protecting your family ? both two-legged and four-legged ? in the event of an emergency is a year-round responsibility.

In many cases, pets will hide during a fire because of the unfamiliar sights and sounds and when firemen descend on your home, the idea of strangers in their territory could make them even more reticent to be found. Just as you put decals on the bedroom windows of your children to alert fire fighters to their presence, so too can you have window decals to let firefighters and other emergency responders know how many pets are in the house. A pet insurance company, Petplan, is offering free window alerts to pet owners. Locating your pets is one of the best steps toward helping save their lives in a fire emergency.

Preventing fires is the best way to keep everyone safe and here are a few fire safety tips to keep in mind year-round:

• Always keep the batteries in your smoke detectors and make certain they are in good working order.
• Extinguish candles and fireplaces before bedtime and never leave a pet unattended around open flames.
• If there are areas in your home in which a pet could accidentally start a fire, you need to ?pet-proof? that area. Properly store propane tanks, address loose wires, etc.

Pet parents know the importance of keeping a pet emergency kit available in the event of an evacuation; along those same lines, you should always keep your pet?s evacuation equipment near the doorway ? this includes your leash or pet carrier.

Another pet safety measure that?s being undertaken is a Bark 10-4 campaign. This campaign aims to equip every fire truck with a pet oxygen mask. Reports show that close to half a million pets are impacted by fires annually and that close to 50,000 of those pets succumb to smoke asphyxiation. If the fire trucks have the correct equipment, the lives of many pets can be saved.

What steps do you take to keep your family members safe? We?d love to hear your tips! Here's a great video on Pet Fire Safety from the Fire Safety Dog.?

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Source: http://www.blogpaws.com/2012/10/fire-safety-month-keep-your-pets-safe.html

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