Representatives from the Fire Department of the Royal St. Vincent and the Grenadines Police Force recently appeared on WE FM’s Cop Chat program to discuss the causes and effects of fires.
Inspector of Police stationed at the Argyle Fire Station Curtis Clarke highlighted the connection between house fires and electrical fans, warning against improper use of the machines.
“We use our fans and we finish using the fan but we fail to take off the fan and we leave it running for a period of time, as a matter of fact a lot of persons leave their fan running and leave the home and go whether in town to a different area and that’s one of the source of fires that we have recently been seeing when we do our checks, you can see where the fire started and in the area where the fire started the electrical equipment that is plugged in was a fan,” he said.
Inspector Clarke noted that leaving fans on for extended periods of time unattended could also pose a danger.
“You have a fan and because it has been running for an extensive period of time it generates a lot of time and the wiring within the fan could be affected because of the amount of heat and the electricity traveling through those and after a while it can create an electrical spark which will cause a fire to happen. Not all fans may do that but there are instances where fire happens due to the fact that fans were left plugged in over a period of time and unattended,” he said.
According to the fire department, other common causes of fires in SVG are overloading of electrical circuits, unattended cooking media, and unsupervised children.
