38 people have lost their lives due to home fires this year in Louisiana, four more than at this same time last year. According to the State Fire Marshal, most of these home fires appear to be related to cooking, smoking, or electrical issues, and nearly all of them involved homes without functioning smoke detectors.
State Fire Marshal spokesperson Ashley Rodrigue said they’re hoping to head off this upward trend in fire deaths before the winter starts up again. She said when it comes to cooking-related fires they’re finding most of those incidents come from people who are either impaired, tired, or distracted.
“Stay with that cooking process the entire time. That is the number one issue that we are finding when it comes to cooking is individuals starting a process and either being distracted or stepping away for a minute and forgetting,” said Rodrigue.
Rodrigue said smoking really needs to be done outdoors and not inside of a home, and when you smoke outside make sure you safely discard whatever is left.
“We have had some instances when we see smoking materials discarded not in the best manner, in an ashtray, just kind of thrown out and that has caused a fire over time,” said Rodrigue.
Rodrigue said many of the electrical fires have been linked to people overloading outlets by connecting extension cables to each other.
“This is very dangerous because you are extending that electrical current further than it is intended to, a lot of time people are putting very, very large appliances that have high wattages into these,” said Rodrigue.
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