House to House: Fire Prevention Week Tips to Prevent Your Pet from Starting a Fire

Fire Prevention Week, October 3 to 9, was established to commemorate the Great Chicago Fire of 1871 that killed more than 250 people, left 100,000 homeless, destroyed more than 17,400 structures and burned more than 2,000 acres.

According to popular legend, the fire broke out after a cow - belonging to Mrs. Catherine O'Leary - kicked over a lamp, setting first the barn, then the whole city on fire. For more than 130 years, people have been blaming this huge fire on the cow and, while Chicago historian Robert Cromie has helped to debunk this version of events, there is little debate that the fire started near the barn where Mrs. O'Leary kept her five milking cows.

With Mrs. O’Leary and her poor cow’s reputations in mind and on the eve of Fire Prevention Week, I felt it important to warn you that you may be living with an arsonist.  According to data distributed by the National Fire Protection Association earlier this year, nearly 1,000 house fires each year are accidentally started by the homeowners’ pets. 

A recent article on HouseLogic.com, “Cute But Deadly: The Top 5 Most Notorious Pet Arsonists” includes a list of “the top 5 pyro pets and the crimes that made them famous.”  Ha!  The list includes:

• Lucy a dog that nearly burned down her owner’s Jacksonville, Oklahoma home when she tried to eat a cake sitting on the stove.  Lucy’s paws turned on the gas burner, setting the kitchen on fire.
• Stewie, a Lake Worth, Florida cat, purportedly waited until the owners were asleep and then knocked over a candle that started a house fire, leaving them homeless.
• Tracy Morgan of Saturday Night Live and 30 Rock fame had his apartment catch fire due to a faulty aquarium light.  Tongue in cheek, the HouseLogic article stated, “Although the fish aren’t officially to blame for this one, they still watched it happen with cold, emotionless little fish eyes.”

On a serious note, I do not truly believe that your sweet Fluffy or my sweet Bear are planning to burn down our homes, but accidents can happen. Therefore, as responsible pet and home owners let us take precautions to prevent our four-legged friends from starting a fire that could destroy not only our homes but possible take the lives of our beloved pets in the process.

The American Kennel Club offers the following tips for preventing your pet from starting a fire:

• Extinguish open flames or invest in flameless candles.  Pets are generally curious and will investigate candles or your fireplace.  Make sure your pet is not left unattended around an open flame and make sure you extinguish candles and the fire in your fireplace before leaving home.  Cats especially are bad about starting fires when their tails turn over lit candles.
• Remove stove knobs.  Be sure to remove stove knobs or protect them with covers before leaving the house.  According to the National Fire Protection Association, a stove or cook top is the number one piece of equipment involved in your pet starting a fire.
• Beware glass water bowls.  This one came as a surprise to me.  Apparently leaving a glass water bowl for your pet outside on a wooden deck is dangerous.  The sun’s rays when filtered through the glass and water can actually heat up and ignite the wooden deck below it. 

For more information on Fire Prevention week, visit the National Fire Prevention Association’s website at www.nfpa.org.

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House to House is distributed weekly by the Arkansas Realtors® Association.