Chins in here sticker???

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keninphilly

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I am setting up a security system that has automatic fire detection for my new home.

When I was looking for housing I saw signs in the windows of houses. Some of these were on children's bedrooms that said "Save my kids" to alert fire personnel that there were kids. I am wondering if there are any such stickers or signs pertaining to animals as well, particularly caged animals? I have lived in apartment buildings my whole adult life, and I always picked places that are very fire resistant (the one I am in now used to be a factory so it is all concrete and virtually fire proof).

Now I am moving to Montreal (where a lot of older housing have electrical issues) and last week there was a fire in a house only a couple of streets away from my new house. Also there is an old abandoned building right next to the house that was recently bought and the new owner plans on a complete renovation STARTING with the electrical. However this has gotten me worried (I always HAVE to have something to worry about :hmmm: )

My biggest fear in the world is for something to happen when I am not home, that is why I am wondering what I can do to ensure that my chins will be safe when I am not home JUST IN CASE. Anyone know if they make such stickers or signs??
 
I know I've seen those kind of sticker or magnet at Mondou (pet supply store if you didn't knew yet) but it was for dogs and cat. I woudl also like to have one too for my hedgie, cause I'm so scared a fire would occur and not because of me when I'm not there. You're tight about electrical issue, my first appartment on the island had bad electrical wireing, I don't want to scrae you, but I would be sure to check if yours is ok (not that you can anything for neighbours...).

What I'm planing, is, when I'll have some time, go to Walmart and have them printed a magnet to put on my fridge that says "save my hedgehog". I would also place their travel cage near them so it'es even easier in case of emergency to get your chinnies out.
 
There used to be places that'd print custom bumper stickers rather inexpensivly - check local printers, too!
 
FiaSpice said:
You're tight about electrical issue, my first appartment on the island had bad electrical wireing, I don't want to scrae you, but I would be sure to check if yours is ok (not that you can anything for neighbours...).
Click to expand...

I had a professional inspection, and my house had been gutted and redone, my home is up to date with electrical, in fact the inspector said that it is beautiful and I had made a wise decision.

InkedupTara said:
You can get them free from here
http://www.aspca.org/pet-care/disaster-preparedness/
Click to expand...

Thanks!
 
There are only so many ways a fire can be started. There are the manmade, and the natural. Almost all natural fires are started by lightening. There are very few other ways nature can create fire (volcanic eruptions should not be a problem ;-)).

Your place is not high risk for lightening - at least to me, your building is not the tallest (from the 1 pic on the other thread, and it is not wood).

Manmade fires can be broken down a little bit more.
You have mechanical, arson, railroad, electrical, children, escaped fire, and smoking. There might be a few I am missing.

Now, my area of knowledge is in wildland fire and we use similar catergories to narrow down a firestart area. For example, a fire along side the road. It could be a lot of things, but you can probably eliminate quite a few just by looking at the scene. Ok, no railroad nearby, no electrical wires nearby, no debris burning nearby, no lightening in days (we actually have a program that monitors and records all hits with their gps position). Then you start going over the areas that could be the cause. Ok, from the area does not appear to be children (10 on a Monday, other factors), does not appear to be smoking (specific weather pattern for outside is not there). Therefore it is probably mechanical: IE brakes sticking, catalytic converter chunk, other random event such as 18 wheeler blowing a tire, rim coming off and dragging rear axle down highway - yep happened. Look up road, see car disabled on the side, go look at it.

So, with your house you can kind of look at it from the outside and inside.

Since you are in the city wildfire is very, very low possibility. Neighboring house on fire causing yours to burn through radiant heat is very low - brick normally doesn't burn well :) Stuff inside sure, but the outside of your neighbors house and yours appears fairly fire resistant. No major overhanging foliage - softwoods is usually what we are concerned with. So a fire from the outside of your house catching it on fire is probably very, very, very slim.

Now, on the inside the electrical is usually a huge fire starter - it has been updated, check that one off the list as long as you don't have anything plugged in wrong, or has bad cords (chin chewed). I'm sure you don't partake anything like welding inside your kitchen, so a mechanical fire is probably slim also. Kitchen fire is possible depending on your ability to cook ;-) However you would probably be right there so invest in a GOOD kitchen fire extinguisher and that should take care of that risk. Also have a GOOD extinguisher on each floor of your house.

So basically the only real cause of a fire in your place would be arson, accidental, child, or smoking. You can assess those risks on your own. Do you have kids or do kids frequent and do they have access to fire starting objects? Child set fires are a very small minority and there is usually a reason why they would start a fire, risk is probably small to non existant. Smoking really depends on you and your company. Also depends on if Canada has mandated the new cigarettes that supposidly don't stay lit and are less likely to burn stuff.

Arson's are very few, and usually there would be local knowledge if one is in the area. For example a local small town in my area had an arsonist 2 years ago. Average fire calls in that town is 2 houses a year burn. They lost 7 houses in less than 2 weeks - pattern? Yep, all were old farm houses, all had attached barns, there was an MO. Your house is not very arson friendly - it would not be "fun" to watch burn. Most arsonists will watch their handiwork, and they like a show. Your house being what appears to be stone will not provide that. They would see smoke from the windows and a bunch of trucks, maybe some flames out the windows. But nothing spectacular like a full barn of hay.

Hope this helps aliviate some of your concerns. It stilll does not hurt to be prepared, and install GOOD smoke detectors.
 
FiaSpice said:
What I'm planing, is, when I'll have some time, go to Walmart and have them printed a magnet to put on my fridge that says "save my hedgehog". I would also place their travel cage near them so it'es even easier in case of emergency to get your chinnies out.
Click to expand...

I hope you mean easier for you to get the hedgehogs out. Because a fire fighter isnt going to take the time to chase your animals around a cage to stick it in a travel carrier. They are going to attempt to pick up the entire cage and bring it out or the animal itself out. Not put it in a carry cage.
 
I can only imagine the firemans face here...1 dog
2 cats
68 chinchillas.....
they would be hard to catch with all the get-up on. all the cages are on wheels here, they can knock out the walls and pull out the cages fine by me. Marshall already said when we move out he is just going to add a huge door to the wall to get my cages out.
 
Melissa said:
I hope you mean easier for you to get the hedgehogs out. Because a fire fighter isnt going to take the time to chase your animals around a cage to stick it in a travel carrier. They are going to attempt to pick up the entire cage and bring it out or the animal itself out. Not put it in a carry cage.
Click to expand...

Oh I see. I guess the firefighter won't botter than because I'm planing on a huge cage that isn't easy to "maneuver" it trough my appartment. Anyway, it's a good thing if I have to do it myself.
 
Just a thought.. sorry to steal the thread.. but how many of you keep a set of supplies outside the house in case of an emergency like this?

I know I have a set of liners and blankets and bags(one for each hog, they are boys so I cant put them together) in my car and a box of the left over cage panels so I am not COMPLETELY out of supplies. Bowls and other things are pretty cheap or easy to find and I can quickly run to the store and pick up food(I wouldnt leave that in the car with Fl weather). Im a bit of a freak when it comes to fires and such. So Ive planned this out!


Oh yea! When I get my sign for the fire fighters.. Ill have to tell them to grab the hogs bucket wheels too! LOL! Ill have some pretty upset hoggies with out their wheels. Can you see it now?! Hedgehog in hand and a freshly ran poop wheel under their arm!
 
Hi there. Do you have a carbon monoxide detector? If not please buy one. Fires are not the only thing to be on the safe side about. We had our alarm wake us up at 3AM back in March. Our furnace had a huge leak and the furnace and house is only 11yrs old! It can happen. We were awakened and called 911 and everybody including pets were all OK! If we had not bought that CO alarm we would all be dead,we would have just died in our sleep. The alarms that plug directly into a electrical outlet are the best,no batteries! Ours detected the very small amounts at first right away so not even our hamsters were affected. I have also bought these stickers on E-bay and put them on our front door.
 
I second the carbon monoxide detector, you can get the electrical ones with battery back up - same with fire dectors. Most new building codes, and major renovation codes require hard wired smoke detectors. I still firmly believe in a battery back-up one. Most newer smoke detectors (within the last 10 years of so) have a 10 year life. On the back it should actually state it's manufactor date, and some also state it's expiration date. It's really neat - we actually had one in our house start beeping 2 weeks ago - it expired, it beeped to let us know. It was about 4 months early on the expiration, but works for me! The new detectors even come with long term batteries, and they should last years if not the life of the detector, the older style you should still replace the battery every 6 m to a year. Also keep them as dust free as possible or replace. They are cheap. You can even get smoke detector/carbon monoxide detectors in one. The dual ones since the carbon monoxide detector normally goes near ground level actually is much more sensitive since that gas hangs low, and is programed to trigger at smaller amounts.

Glad the info helped some :) Enjoy your new place, it sure looks nice.
 
Ok, so here's a question for you guys. Where do you put the stickers? Some of them seem a bit small (exp. the ASPCA free one) and seem like they'd be easy to miss. Do you just buy one for each entrance to your house? Or somewhere else?
Someone mentioned a magnet... but what are the chances of a firefighter going in and seeing a magnet on the fridge?

I guess my question is- where is the best place to put one of those so that the firefighter has the best chance of seeing it?


Are there any firefighters on the board who would care to chime in? (I don't know if the person who wrote the detailed post about fires is one or just really knowledgable haha).
 
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5melrose5 said:
Hi there. Do you have a carbon monoxide detector? If not please buy one. Fires are not the only thing to be on the safe side about. We had our alarm wake us up at 3AM back in March. Our furnace had a huge leak and the furnace and house is only 11yrs old! It can happen. We were awakened and called 911 and everybody including pets were all OK! If we had not bought that CO alarm we would all be dead,we would have just died in our sleep. The alarms that plug directly into a electrical outlet are the best,no batteries! Ours detected the very small amounts at first right away so not even our hamsters were affected. I have also bought these stickers on E-bay and put them on our front door.
Click to expand...


I am getting the carbon monoxide detector, yes. Also a Radon detector. If there is a detector out there I'm getting it!
 
I'm a wildland firefighter. I don't enter buildings (they are crazy ;-)). I fight the fires like out in California, but in Maine or wherever they send me. Most structural firefighters think I'm crazy, two totally different jobs that are combining in the wildland urban interface.

Anyways. To be brutally honest if the firefighters know there is no one home, they may or may not do an entry, a lot is going to depend on how involved the house/structure is when the arrive on scene. People they will try very, very hard to enter. Animals are not worth their lives, so chances are they are not going to go back in after them, especially caged. If they can grab them on the way through/out they will, otherwise they are gone. Chances are though a caged animal would be dead by then from smoke inhalation. It takes less than 5 minutes for some houses to become fully involved. Youtube some house fire videos - they will make your hair curl. Especially if a lot of heavily varnished furniture is around or a christmas tree. I watched a video showing a cigarette in a trash can, the room hit flashpoint and was fully involved in 4 minutes.

I know one firefighter that did a reentry for a dog, got an award from PETA for doing it because he managed to save the dog, but was reprimanded and given a warning by the chief because he endangered his life. He barely made it back out.

I live within 1.5 minutes of the fire dept. They will most likely be able to get my dogs out, and they might, just might get my critters out, but that is because they are across from the main door and they would have to push the cages on wheels out the door. They won't do much more than that. A lot of firefighters are deathly afraid of rodents - they are not going to stick their hands in a cage with a critter they don't know with huge teeth, even with gloves on. My local guys have been honest with me and the realities that go with fire fighting.

In some areas of this state a fire dept. response can be around 20 minutes from first report. I have been on scene with 2 towns over had to drive by the local fire dept. and made it on scene before them - that is the life in small town America with no local jobs and volunteer fire depts. The average age of a fire fighter in Maine is 45. I have a fire chief in my area that is in his 80's, actually there are a few of them. There are guys still doing entries in their 60's and 70's in this state. A few towns I work with only have 5 guys on their dept's and not one is certified to do an entry, so they have to call for another town to do that. That can be a long wait. In todays world it takes 120 hours of training a year just to be a volunteer firefighter. I have been on fires where we have called for 15 towns to respond and have had less than 30 firefighters on scene (usually wildfire threatening homes).
 
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