Your family – and your precious pets – are all safer with home fire sprinklers

The Columbian reports that Portland, Oregon firefighters responded to an apartment fire and could hear screaming inside and see smoke seeping from under the door. So they kicked in the door and found — a cat. The cat — named Dude — was fine after the firefighters took him outside and gave him some oxygen. The apartment's automatic sprinklers contained the fire to the couch, where it started.

Meanwhile, in Virginia, a family cat died in a house fire that the fire marshal’s office said was caused by “carelessly discarded smoking material in a trash can.”

All one has to do is Google "cat dies in house fire" or "dog dies in house fire" to begin to understand that there is a problem. During my firefighter career I was able to rescue pets from house fires, and I also witnessed the death of many pets.

In the home fire sprinkler debate, we always talk about fire sprinklers saving lives; but we are talking about human lives. The loss of a pet in a fire may be just as devastating to a family. Our pets are precious to us and we mourn their deaths the same any other family member’s death.

Fire sprinklers are proven to save lives. If you have a reported fire in your home the risk of dying decreases by about 80%. The Portland fire reminds us that pets are equally protected by fire sprinklers in the home.

Special thanks to Marty Ahrens who provided the inspiration for this post.

Comments

[michelle staples]

As an animal safety specialist, I can heartily concur. We can teach responders how to safely and efficiently rescue an animal (especially large animals), but first they need to be given a "fighting chance", especially where fire is involved. Large animal people are tradition-bound and will not spend the money to install sprinker systems. Consequently, their multi-thousand dollar animals die in preventable fires. Factory farms are even worse, where the owners need only walk away and the insurance will pay to set them up again. Sprinkler systems save lives. For more information on large animal rescue and response, go to www.saveyourhorse.com