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Remember when you were a scout, or
when ever you were taught to build a campfire? You teacher said that by making a
tee-pee of small sticks, it would light faster. You needed lots of surface area
to put heat on (and get oxygen to) to get the fire to light..??
Now look at most new houses under
construction, you can plainly see the similarities. A house in the framing stage
adds the additional accelerant of a roof to keep the heat in while the fire
builds.
Now you move in your furniture,
draperies and linen , you have just added the final ingredient for a potential
tragedy, the Fire Load.
Your typical house has sheetrock
walls and ceiling (won't burn). It may have a wood floor, but fire burns up, not
down. So what's to burn in your house? The Furniture and accessories, that's
what! If the contents burns long enough, the house will probably catch fire, but
initially, it's the contents (fire load) that
burns.
You should have? insurance to help
replace MOST of the things you could lose in a fire, but what about those things
that are not replaceable or have a great sentimental value? A human life, or
even the life of a pet! Wedding pictures, baby pictures, family heirlooms and
other items that monetary reimbursement won't cover?
Now, our products, properly
applied, CAN and WILL prevent a fire from ever getting started.? Remember, a
fire that never starts, is the easiest to control. Should it get started, our
products will slow it down, giving you more time to escape and more time for
firefighters to fight it.
Upholstered furniture is still the
“leading burnable product first involved in fatal fires in the US” according to
the US National Fire Protection Association.
Fire in upholstered furniture
(18.2% of all home fire deaths for the 1993-97 time frame) the biggest single
cause of deaths in the US, ahead of bedding and mattresses (counted together)
with 15.3%. During that time frame, fires originating in upholstered furniture
caused 658 civilian deaths in home fires.
Upholstered furniture contributes
to fire deaths not only when it is the actual source of the fire, but it also
contributes when it provides fuel for the fire that started elsewhere.
Obviously, the upholstered furniture is the largest 'fire load' in living rooms,
where about 30% of deaths occur due to fire.
How many lives would be saved by
making the fire load, not a
fire load? (treat with LESS-FIRE's to make it
so!)
The NFPA estimates
434 per year due to cigarettes in furniture
97 by making furniture resistant to small open flames
Over 1500 by slowing down the spread to allow for escape
The statistics above are
summarized from an article in the NFPA Journal. in 2001. Go to
www.nfpa.org to find and read the
entire article.
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