Life & Safety with Jimmy Rios
Welcome to Life & Safety with Jimmy Rios! Get ready to dive into a world where safety meets storytelling! Drawing from his rich background as a former firefighter, EMT and safety expert, Jimmy brings you straight into the heart of safety and emergency preparedness. Episodes feature easy-to-understand tips, real-life stories, and interviews with experts, all designed to help you protect yourself, your business, and those you care about.
Whether it's advice on navigating everyday safety challenges or insights into the latest in health and safety trends, let this podcast educate and entertain you. Join Jimmy and level-up your safety knowledge with engaging discussions that could one day save a life.
Life & Safety with Jimmy Rios
How Not to Burn Down Your House This Holiday Season
Cozy season is upon us! And that means candles, comfort food, and ALL of the decorations. But the same things that make your home feel festive can also create fire hazards. This episode takes a closer look at everyday hazards that can spark the most common types household fires, as well as simple steps you can take to prevent them.
We're shaing an unforgettable story of a kitchen grease fire that spiraled into a five-acre forest blaze (with a startled dog caught in the middle), and a few more real-life examples that show just how quickly “harmless” habits can become dangerous. From overloaded outlets to draped lampshades, pumpkin spice candles to Christmas tree lights, we’re unpacking the risks that show up in homes like yours and ours every fall and winter.
Most importantly, you’ll walk away with practical prevention tips you’ll actually remember: how to safely smother a grease fire, why cutting the third prong off an extension cord is a terrible idea (please don't do this), what your smoke alarms are really trying to tell you, and how to check doors for heat before making a safe escape.
Whether you’re decorating for Halloween, hosting Thanksgiving dinner, or stringing up twinkle-lights for the holidays, this episode will help you stay cozy, safe, and fire-free. After all, the best way to celebrate is by making sure the only thing glowing is your holiday spirit.
What you'll hear in this episode:
- Grease fire survival tips you’ll actually remember
- The “dog on fire” story (and its fiery aftermath)
- Why your cords, candles, and decorations may be riskier than you think
- The space heater features that can help keep your home safe
- Smoke alarm safety tips
Life Safety Associates specializes in emergency response training for corporate ERT Teams. We help businesses create competent and confident first responders who are ready to handle unexpected emergencies. For more information you find us @lifesafetyassoc or email@lifesafety.com.
What's happening? It's your boy, jimmy, with another Life and Safety Podcast, and with your girl, megs. Hello, today we're going to be talking about fire preparedness week. Yeah, nice, so fire preparedness.
Megan:Fire prevention week.
Jimmy:Oh, fire prevention. Okay, I was thinking of preparedness. I was like we've talked about preparedness so much so fire prevention. Don't play with matches.
Megan:Which, to be clear, you can't see this, but he is in fact playing with a box of matches as we speak.
Jimmy:Well, they were to be fair. They were in the office for some reason, and I don't know why they're here and they're waterproof matches and I wanted to look at them, um what do we feel about them? They seem cool, they're actually really sturdy, like you know, like you'll break it oh, that's a solid, that's a solid match yeah, and then, like the flame part on top is it's like it's a wax covering on it Pretty cool.
Jimmy:Those are the strike on the box. Matches too. It's always kind of nice. And as far as fire prevention goes, it says caution, keep out of reach of children. I would prevent children from playing with matches anyways. Just not, don't let them touch it. Yeah, that's just good. And the first time in my whole life I just put a match back in the box without lighting it. Oh, amazing, fire prevention week. Hey, what do you do? Don't start the fire.
Megan:Don't start the fire and you know, I think that fits in really nicely to the theme that we were joking about. But I would argue the best way to prevent a fire is not be a dum-dum.
Jimmy:Don't do dumb things, yeah, so, like you've heard in some of the earlier podcasts, like some fires have started, you know lighting, lizards on fire, you know lighting, you know know, matches in an open field um this wasn't you, but you know a dog catching on fire catching on fire so uh yikes and then running around and catching everything else on fire so let's we should probably put that in the context yeah, that's probably one that we should probably put that in the context.
Jimmy:Yeah, that's probably one that we should discuss. So if your drip pan or your grease pan catches on fire on your range, you know, first off you should be watching it and it shouldn't be that high. But you know, accidents happen, life happens. It's all good For sure, for sure, all good. First thing you should always do is turn off your range if you can, um, move the heat off the burner or the pan, excuse me, off the burner, if you can, or so you're removing the heat two different ways and then we always smother it. Pan Baking powder or baking soda, not baking powder.
Megan:Mm-hmm.
Jimmy:Right. So baking soda in the refrigerator you old folks remember that you take a bowl of baking soda and open it up in the can Gives the refrigerator a smelling nice.
Megan:Mm-hmm.
Jimmy:So if you pull it out of the refrigerator, you can use it. If you pull it out of the cupboard, you probably shouldn't use it.
Megan:Fair On that note, or a lid on the pan, if you have that the lid works.
Jimmy:Great Flour, mm-hmm. You know, if you use the whole bucket of flour, so to speak, it'll work. If you just use a handful of flour, it's like you're traveling through the flu network in Harry Potter, don't I go on LA? It just flies up everywhere. So you have to be careful with that. So this grease pan catches fire. This homeowner takes it, which a lot of homeowners do. They'll never throw it in the sink and never throw it out the back door, mm-hmm. Or through the sliding glass door. Yeah, lots of times people forget to open the sliding glass door and then their house catches on fire. Oh no, because they just look through the glass, right yeah, and it's just everything's on fire. Oh no, they just looked at the glass, right yeah, and it's just everything's on fire. Oh wow. This particular situation is the person opened the door, threw the hot, flaming grease out and it landed on their poor pooch and the poor dog caught on fire While the dog was running around putting itself out. We actually put the dog out, but it was running around.
Megan:Typically the dog survived and was fine.
Jimmy:The dog was fine. We don't tell the story if the dog didn't live. I feel like that's an important thing to preface the story with live.
Megan:I feel like that's an important thing to preface the story with.
Jimmy:Started a five-acre forest fire, but the dog did survive. It was all good. Long candy life. So fiber vision, don't throw hot grease outside.
Megan:Or on animals yeah. Don't catch animals on fire, yeah or don't move on grease.
Jimmy:How about that?
Megan:that's a good one better.
Jimmy:That's a good one. Yeah, a lot of times people throw that in the sink and then water and yeah, and lots of times people have curtains over their sink. Oh true, yeah, bad juju there, bad bad juju Now. Other fire prevention things is using or overloading extension cords.
Megan:Oh, it's a massive one.
Jimmy:Yeah, if you chain a bunch of cords together, it could be an issue. A lot of the new extension cords have fuses in them or ground fault indicators, so if it does go to ground or doesn't work right, it'll shut itself off. Never cut the third prong off your extension cord or any other power cord you have, because that's the ground. Yeah, if you mess that up, they can actually arc and bad things can happen.
Megan:I didn't know that people did that, oh yeah.
Jimmy:Yeah, people do that, especially with people with older homes and they might have maybe the two-prong outlet and they're like, oh, I have this extension cord. It's easier for me to cut this extension cord than to change outlets or go to a better outlet or something like that.
Megan:Makes sense. Yeah, yeah, yeah, don't do that. Another big one is decorations. Yeah, I was looking at the FDNY. Oh, no, fd and F Help me.
Jimmy:NFPA. Yes, I didn't know if you were trying to say FDNY, no NFPA.
Megan:The National Fire Prevention Association. I was looking at their website and they say that decorations are going to be one of the biggest. But it's a help me. Fuel, thank you, starts the fires.
Jimmy:It's like we're playing charades over here.
Megan:I know, except my charades is just hitting my hand over and over. I speak, meg, don't worry about it. Oh potential fire hazards, but like decorations, you know, especially as we're moving along into, you know, October, Halloween. You know corn stalks, crepe, paper, dried flowers, things like that, and as we travel along into Thanksgiving and Christmas, all of those, you know, the more dried things you bring into the house you know, those are super flammable and you know, especially now nowadays, candles, you know you got the pumpkin spice candles Gross, yes, well we know you got the pumpkin spice candles Gross.
Megan:Yes, well, we know how you feel about cinnamon, but I think I read somewhere that December is the time of year where most candles are lit. But, as you know, we get into those fall, autumnal months and winter months. We definitely see an increase in candle usage, which is also a I'm spiraling. Did you say autumnal?
Jimmy:Yeah, Like autumn, autumnly months, autumn months. Yeah, I mean, obviously autumn turns into winter, right? Yeah, yeah, it's getting colder.
Megan:The lights are, you know, darker out out, so all those things are happening for sure.
Jimmy:but, yeah, decorations are gonna be. Yeah, decorations are a big deal. Um, yeah, you know candles. Um, I don't want to offend anybody, but I know there's a. I don't want to offend anybody, but there's a. I'm not going to say what or even try to guess what.
Jimmy:There's a region I want to see as the Norwegians or something like that, or they decorate their Christmas trees with candles and it's really pretty and really cool. It's beautiful. I've seen it. Yeah, like online, yeah, but if you don't know how to do it and you're not doing right and you don't manage it, that's a big deal. Right, that's everything on fire, to your point. The decorations. I just watched a video I don't know how old it was, but somebody sent it to me A family celebrating Hanukkah and the candles got knocked over and lit the table on fire. So these are all things that definitely could happen as far as decorations go on holidays. So just make sure that you're aware of the surrounding areas, of the surrounding areas, um, you don't know. Like, if you have a candle, make sure you don't have, you know, drapes around it things like that.
Megan:Don't leave it unattended, especially not near children or animals all those are great things.
Jimmy:um, the other thing people like to do is like put, like you know, um cloth over lamps, like to dim the lamp a little or something like that, make a cool ambiance or whatever. Um, try not to do that, especially because the light bulbs get pretty hot. Yeah, um, that can happen. Um, now, real quick, if you do have to leave or run out because you're I don't know whatever catches on fire, you're leaving the fire prevention things didn't work. Make sure you check the doors for heat. Don't forget the fire alarm going off.
Jimmy:Always check at the top of the door, because heat rises and then it starts to sink because it's compartmentalized. So check the top of the door for heat and in the middle of the door. Never go straight to the door handle Door handle's bad To the top. If it's hot and the middle of the door is warm, you probably can't go out that door. If the top of the door is warm and then the middle is cold, if you will, or lukewarm, and the bottom is lukewarm, you could probably go out that door. You're probably going to have to crawl. You have to crawl, you know. Remember the fire's hot. It radiates a lot of heat. Yeah, you know, mike showed me this video this morning of a vase being thrown at fires and I was like that's no chance. Those people are standing way too close to those things.
Megan:Yeah, it was an ad for some fire prevention thingy or other. In the vase it looked like it was double-walled and had some sort of chemical in it. And I saw it and I was like I have to show this to Jimmy. There's no way this is real. Saw it, I was like I have to show this to jimmy. There's no way this is real. Um, but it's like you know something, like you have to use a whole fire extinguisher on a fire. You know the size of a trash, can. There's no way that a small little vase is gonna knock out a fire.
Jimmy:That's big yeah, I mean they do make these fire grenade things where it's a chemical reaction and it explodes. Air cold explodes and it puts the fire out. It works really good in like dumpsters, but you have to kind of like stand far from it. Yeah, you know, you gotta like, you know, shoot it like kobe, you know go into it, kind of like. In the video you showed me they were like standing right next to it and I was like no, yeah, that would hurt.
Jimmy:They would look like flinching. Yeah, you know. So, um, hopefully you know, just kind of think about some fire prevention stuff. Don't overload your outlets. Space heaters space heaters is a big one, you know. Make sure you get a space heater, that you do have a space heater. It falls over, it beeps at you or turns itself off. I know those are some safety features. Now Try not to leave one attended. Don't throw blankets over them. Try not to cover your heater bins too high. Especially, give the old school vents in the floors. Okay, be cautious of your decorations this year for your autumnly months Smoke alarms, yeah, scarecrows, things like that.
Jimmy:And you know, when the time changes, change your batteries and your smoke alarms. There's some big, high-level things there. Have a plan, have a fire extinguisher and be safe Peace.
