The golden rules for fire prevention are "awareness", "precaution" and "escape".

Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. I’d like to begin by quoting a few figures at you. 55,887…8,500...and 1,000 degrees centigrade. That is the number of house fires reported last year, the number of people killed or injured in those fires, and the temperature of the flames given off by some items of furniture within 30 seconds of a fire starting.
    All rather alarming, I think you’d agree. Well, what can we do to prevent these tragedies? In the fire prevention service we have three golden roles which we call "awareness", "precautions", and "escape". I’d like to start by dealing with the first of these—"awareness".
    In the average home there are about half a dozen fire hazards or risk factors which we should all be aware of. Now the primary hazard is the electrical circuit. A lot of us live in older houses, and if your wiring is more than 15 years old, it may not be up to modern safety standards. Check that you have a functioning fuse-box, and if you’re in any doubt, you really ought to get it looked at by a qualified electrician.
    Electrical appliances come second on mi list, and I’m thinking in particular of televisions and electric blankets. Some of you may not know that a colour television can generate over 20,000 volts, and this voltage can be retained for quite some time after a set has been switched off. So always switch off and disconnect from the mains when you finish watching. And don’t put a TV in front of curtains of soft furnishings. The electric blanket is no longer the danger it was years ago, but it was the cause of 14 fatalities last year, so I think it is still important to remember not to fold them and certainly not to use one if it accidentally gets wet.
    I just mentioned soft furnishings and this is a hazard which I want to emphasis. Many of you may have sofas and armchairs made before 1989—when the new fire safety regulations came in. Now these may contain polyurethane foam fillings, You probably know that these fillings can give off extremely poisonous fumes in a fire, so if you do have this kind of furniture you should either get rid of it or have it recovered with flame-retardant cloth—which is now widely available and not expensive.
    OK, I’d like to say a few words now about open fires. Recently we’ve noticed quite a fashion to return to open fires, especially in older houses. Obviously this is quite a hazard, and there are one or two fairly obvious things to be aware of. Firstly you should always use a fire guard in front of the fireplace, and make sure it’s a fairly sturdy one. Secondly, never dry wet clothes in front of the fire. To be honest, if you have young children I think you’re better off bricking the fire up and investing in central heating—it might not be so romantic on a winter evening but it’s certainly a lot safer.
    The final thing I want to draw your attention to is aerosols and bottles. Aerosols and bottles often contain flammable liquid or gas, so these should never be left in direct sunlight on a window ledge, for example. You’d be surprised at how quickly sunlight can heat up a pressurized container and lead to a fire.
    So keep them in a cupboard or away from windows. Right, I’d like to go on now to the area of "precautions". Smoke detectors are perhaps the most common...