What Gets You Fired Up?

**I took today's pics in October 2007 at a Minnesota fire department training burn. No one was hurt here, the property was designated to be burned for training purposes. **

A smoke detector can save your life, the lives of the people you love and live with (hopefully they are one in the same!) and of course, your property. There are lots 'o options when it comes to smoke detectors, you can get the battery operated ones at a local hardware store for less than $10. You can spend a little more cash and get some hardwired ones. And there are the smoke and carbon-monoxide combo detectors. Once we have munchkins in our house we will get voice recorded smoke detectors. Studies show that the ankle-biters in our lives have intense sleep patterns and they do not hear the screeching alarms of standard smoke detectors. The ankle-biters are more likely to hear the voice of Mom and Dad. You can record a message for the smoke detector in each kids' room (yes, one in each and every bedroom!) that says, "Jacob, this is Mom. Jacob, wake up, this is Mom, there is a fire. Get out of the house now. Jake, get out of the house, this is Mom." You can buy those smoke detectors here.

Are you afraid that you can't afford a smoke detector for every bedroom and for each level of the house? Chances are your local fire department will give you smoke detectors if you cannot afford them. Contact them...

See that? Down there? Once the training was done, the fire department let it burn...it took less than 5 minutes to get to this point. And the heat was crazy intense from where I was on the front lawn about 50 feet away...