Do you keep a fire extinguisher in your kitchen like safety experts recommend – and sometimes homeowner’s insurance policies require? If you have one, do you know how to use it? Or even how old it is? If you have a kitchen grease fire and don’t aim the spray from the extinguisher correctly, you can spray burning oil all over the kitchen and yourself. There are other ways to put out kitchen fires – baking soda and pot lids, for example – but you have to have them in easy reach to be effective. If you mount the red nylon packaging of a Kovenex fire retardant blanket near the stove, you’ll be able to extinguish that fire before you could find the fire extinguisher and pull out the pin.
The Kovenex blanket is a 35″ x 32″ piece of high-performance fabric with inherent fire-resistant, heat-blocking, burn-protection, and tear-resistant properties. Simply rip open the Velcro closure of the red mounting package, unfold the blanket, and place it over the fire to quickly put it out. The fabric is not chemically treated and doesn’t emit toxic fumes. It’s safe for contact with your skin and even protects your arms as you lay the fabric over the fire. In addition to smothering a fire, you could wrap the Kovenex blanket around someone as they escape from a fire.
With fire extinguishers, you have to worry about their fill level, but it’s never a problem with the washable and reusable Kovenex blanket. The Kovenex Home Safety Fire Blanket is $36.00 at The Grommet.
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Another good selling point for these blankets is that if you use a fire extinguisher to put out a fire, they make a horrible powdery mess which has to be cleaned up. By tossing a blanket over a small fire, it would alleviate that problem. Of course, you should still have a fire extinguisher at the ready in case the blanket isn’t enough.
Great idea. I am a 68 yr young senior who lives alone. I have great mobility and a technical education background so operating and understanding a fire extinguishers is not a problem for me. However, I see this item as a very important addition to the private homes and assisted living residences of all seniors. One should be available in the kitchen and one near the bed or the doorway of a seniors bedroom. That is what I will be doing with mine, and mounting them on a permanently installed board that says “In Case of Fire Use This Blanket.” Of course I would most likely use it to wrap my emotional support animal in rather than putting it around myself. I feel these blankets should be required, as are smoke detors in all residential homes and apartments (one in kitchen and one in each bedroom). Most fatalities from fire are not due to burning to death but from succumbing to smoke inhalation because EARLY evacuation was impaired due to low flames when an exit is most succesful.This blanket could temporarily protect an individual while fleeing a fire or wrapped around a child or infant that is being carried by an adult. Of course before these ideas could be incorporated there would have to be safety studies and real time use of this blanket in simulated rescues by independent labs.(Keep in mind smoke detectors were considered an unnecessary, expensive luxury item for two decades before being touted as necessary and mandated by law). Until then I will have two of them in my small 530 sq ft senior apartment. I plan on giving these as gifts to each of my loved ones for their kitchens (due to cost if they want more for their bedrooms they will have to purchase them). Keep us updated to any testing on these blankets. Are there any test results you had performed. Again, great idea.