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Late last year I blogged about the fire safety visits the Fire Brigade were undertaking on estates in the borough and commented that I’d be taking advantage. And I did.

We had our visit last week and, after they had a look around the house, we were left with some tips (we really shouldn’t be using double plug adapters at all, and we need to be a little more conscious about escape routes) and two new smoke alarms – one of which replacing the old one that went off every time we made toast.

Well worth it for the smoke alarms alone, and you never know, the fact we’ve replaced the double plugs with strip adapters may have saved us from a fire.

The visits are free and can be booked online, by email smokealarms@london-fire.gov.uk or by calling 0800 028 4428.

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Tooting Mela 2009I popped down to the annual Tooting Mela yesterday.  I really should have advertised the event last Friday.  The afternoon, organised by London Fire Brigade was a fantastic session of entertainment, demonstrations and free food.

The London Fire Brigade have been done a fantastic job in recent years of getting out of their fire stations and promoting fire safety and prevention – with the aim of reducing the number of times they are leaving their stations to put out fires. As the tragic fire in Lessingham Avenue the previous night showed the Fire Brigade are an essential emergency service, but we should all do our bit to make sure they are used as little as possible.

One great service they provide is a free fire safety check and smoke alarm.  If you want one you can book one via the London Fire Brigade website.  Smoke alarms will give enough warning for a householder to escape without serious injury, and when you can get one installed for free there really is no reason not to have one.

They also demonstrated the potential dangers of tackling fire yourself – the video below shows them demonstrating the effect of using water on a deep fat fryer.

Unfortunately the video stops before the fire blanket they used failed to put the fire out! Instead the fat from the pan overwhelmed the blanket and continued burning. Not how they wanted the demonstration to go, perhaps, but a good lesson that it’s best to let professionals deal with this sort of thing.