The number of house fires has only increased in recent years and aging is one of the main causes. The number of elderly people is increasing and because they are less mobile, less attentive and more often forgetful, they are often victims. So says Marcel van Gerwen, risk management employee at the Brabant-Noord Fire Brigade.
Last year, the fire brigade had to turn out more than 1100 times for house fires in Brabant. That is thirteen percent more than a year earlier. And in the years before that, the number of fires had never been so high.
Fatal victims often turn out to be elderly. Two-thirds of the number of victims of house fires last year were sixty or older. And half of them were over eighty.
According to Marcel van Gerwen, most fires start near the dryer. “In Den Bosch we have fifteen to twenty residential fires per year due to the dryer.” But according to him, things regularly go wrong during cooking. Smoking in the house is third on the list. For example, especially old people fall asleep with a cigarette on the couch or in bed.
Van Gerwen has a number of tips:
- Hang a smoke detector on every floor and near high-risk devices.
- Make sure you test it and make sure that you also hear the smoke detector when you sleep.
- Only turn on the dryer when you are at home.
- Charge your phone during the day and if you still want to charge it next to your bed at night, make sure you have a smoke detector in your bedroom.
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