In recent years, the fire accidents in urban household have shown a constantly upward trend. In order to enhance the aware of fire prevention among the residents, many communities have developed varied and colorful fire safety publicity activities. On the basis of the survey over the household fire safety in the 10 communities in Dingyuan County, east Anhui Province since 2001, the author concludes that the current community fire protection publicity should be based on providing "4 lessons".

1. Provide the Household Decoration Lesson

Nowadays, it has become a common phenomenon for the residents to furnish and decorate their houses, and the investment in and grade of decoration have become increasingly high. However, a great many flammable and combustible materials used in furnishing and decoration have imperceptibly increased the fire load in the urban households. Moreover, once the fire disaster occurs, it will surely cause significant property losses. On August 9, 2002, Mr. Wang sat in the chair and dozed off after drinking alcohol, and the cigarette end in his hand rubbed against the dado. As the dado was wrapped in sponge, it immediately caught fire and ignited the curtain, etc. When the fire was finally put out, the originally well-decorated house was burned beyond recognition. Mr. Wang had to allocate an extra RMB 40,000 Yuan of family budget to get the new house re-decorated. Hence, the community fire protection publicity must provide a good lesson of household decoration for the residents, and it is essential to teach the fire safety knowledge to the residents whose houses are being or to be decorated.

2. Provide the Wedding and Funeral Lesson

The ignorance of fire protection when holding wedding or funeral is also one of the reasons contributing to the frequent outbreak of fire disasters in some households. On December 26, 2001, the resident Mr. Lan bought a carton of firecrackers to prepare for the wedding of his child on New Year's Day. After buying the firecrackers, he put it in the corner of the sitting room without taking any safety measures. On the morning of December 30, Mr. Lan's several friends came to send gifts and congratulate him, when someone threw the cigarette end to the carton with firecrackers, causing the whole carton of firecrackers to explode, leading to 4 people with minor injuries. As a matter of fact, during the wedding or funeral, the hosts always devote all their efforts on entertaining guests and other matters, and have no time to attend to the firecrackers, gas and electric appliances, etc. that are likely to pose fire risk, and this is always likely to present problems. As viewed from above, the community fire protection publicity should also educate the residents to ensure fire safety for wedding or funeral, so as to prevent extreme joy begetting sorrow, or one disaster after another.

3. Provide the Domestic Fire Safety Lesson

According to the statistics, among the fire disasters that have occurred in recent years in our country, some 20% of the fire disasters may attribute to the imprudent use of domestic fire. Among the fire disasters caused by domestic fire use, some people are blindly confident when using gas or oil, and some cause big disaster due to small negligence. On December 4, 2002, Mr. Lin, a resident at Building 103, Songyuan Residential Quarter forgot to turn off the fire after cooking soup as he was busy playing mahjong, so that the pot boiled away and caught fire, leading to the direct property loss of over RMB 80,000 Yuan. As viewed from above, it is absolutely necessary to give education on domestic fire safety, in particular, old people and kids should not be excluded from receiving education on domestic fire safety, as they are more likely to cause problems relating to domestic fire use, and more safety education should to given to them.

4. Provide the Lesson on the Use of Household Electric Appliances

The household electric appliances such as color TV, refrigerator, washing machine, microwave oven and computer, etc. have entered the ordinary families, and the frequent use and increased electric consumption of various household electric appliances have resulted in the increased risk of fire disaster. It is understood that among the fire disasters that have occurred in recent years in our country, the percentage of electric fire disasters has ranked above all others. For instance, after boiling water with an electric water heater, some resident removed it and hung it on the wall covered with wall cloth without turning off the power supply, so that the electric water heater with the power on burnt the wall cloth for a long time, leading to a fire disaster which destroyed the over 160m2 house and all the properties therein, and resulting in the direct property loss of over RMB 200,000 Yuan. It is thus evident that it should become an important part of the community fire protection publicity to prevent the fire disaster caused by the use of household electric appliances.

Abstracted from Shanghai Fire Protection Website