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How many of y’all have ever heard of the NFPA? NFPA stands for National Fire Prevention Association, and they are the folks who have established the code by which Recreational Vehicles are engineered, constructed, and inspected with respect to fire safety and prevention. The standard set by the NFPA is in the NFPA 1192 document. Where am I going with all this? Well, if these fire preventative measures have been incorporated when your RV was being drawn up by the engineers, the least we can do as end users is to be fire-wise when it comes to utilizing these awesome vehicles with our friends and families right? Today we’re going to talk about some common sense fire preventing things we can do to keep our vehicles safe, and our insurance low!
Most RV’s have some sort of food preparation devices, correct? Oven, stove, hot plate, coffee maker, something, right? Well the most obvious thing you need right there in sight and handy is a fire extinguisher! When you wander by it every now and then, check the little gauge to see if the pressure is holding up. They also have service dates printed, so check those occasionally as well. They’re pretty cheap to replace once they’ve gotten old, and a heck of a lot cheaper than replacing the RV!
We talked in the last blog about surge protectors, but in a fire prevention scenario they will help remove voltage induced overheating of your electrical appliances and keep you from pulling the trigger on on one of those shiny, red, fully charged, and up-to-date fire extinguishers we were just discussing!
Something that may not get thought about, especially in an RV where storage space is at a premium, is storing combustibles near the stove or oven. And I’m not talking spray paint cans or spare gas cans for the generator, y’all know better than that; I’m talking the sneaky combustible stuff like paper towels or shopping bags.
Some of the older travel trailers and RVs had heat detectors installed that rang fire bells. If you still have them, service them and keep them up to date as well as install more modern smoke detectors please! And check those batteries!
If you need smoke detectors, extinguishers, and the like, come see us at the website for all your accessories!