Top 5 Tips to Keep Your Family Safe During the Holidays

Before you head out on your holiday shopping there may be a few things you need to add to your list to help keep your family safe.

Number 1: Check your smoke detector. Make sure the batteries are good and the device works.

"That's the biggest savior in your house is your smoke detector so make sure they're up in the living areas, sleeping areas of your home and make sure they all have good batteries," Captain Dusty Meredith, with the Rogers Fire Department said.

Also grab a fire extinguisher, specially if you're cooking with grease.

"Don't squirt water into if a fire starts. You don't want to squirt water onto grease, it'll just spread," Meredith said.  

Number 2: Don't leave your cooking food unattended. Move anything that can catch on fire, like dish towels, away from hot surfaces.

"Any kind of combustibles around a heat source, you want to keep those three feet or more away from those to prevent fires."

Heat sources like Number 3: Check and clean space heaters and fire places.

"This time of year a lot of the house fires come from people not maintaining their fireplaces, not cleaning their flues out, things like that."

If you use a space heater, keep it away from carpet and don't plug it into an extension cord.

Which brings us to Number 4: Check your Christmas lights for frays and only use extension cords that can handle the voltage.

"The heavier the better obviously. The little thin light extension cords those are usually the ones that cause problems, especially on the interior structures."

Problems that lead to Number 5: Have a plan, should something go wrong.

"Don't go back in after anything after you're out of the house and make sure your other family members know that as well. Have a meeting place outside where everybody knows where to go that way you can know everybody's accounted for."