What can you do?

Supervise and educate your children:

• Supervise your children at all times, especially around fire, cooking and heating.
• Don’t let your children use fire - helping with lighting the fire or burning off makes children think that they can control fire.

Remove the temptation:

• Lock away matches and lighters - just like you lock away medicines and other dangerous household substances.
• Teach your children to tell you about any unattended matches or lighters they find and reward them for their honesty.

Make your home fire safe:

• Lead by example - reduce the risk of fire by using fire, cooking, heating and electricity safely.
• Have working smoke alarms in all bedrooms, hallway and living areas.
• Make sure your children know what an alarm sounds like and what to do if it goes off. Sleeping children are unlikely to wake to an alarm unless it’s in their room and they have been taught what the sound of the alarm means.

Make a home fire escape plan to get your children out alive:

• Everybody in the house should know what to do if there is a fire - have a family home fire escape plan and practice it at least twice a year.
• Teach your children to Stop, Drop, Rock and Roll in case their clothes catch fire