Fire Prevention Month, Speigletown edition: the ten minutes that matter, and the one habit the fire service wants changed this year

The Speigletown Fire Company tucked a line into its breakfast announcement this month: “October is also Fire Prevention Month; test your smoke and carbon monoxide detectors, review plans with your family in case of an emergency.” That is the whole assignment, and it takes about ten minutes. Here is how to do it well, with a few local reasons why.

Why it is October

Fire Prevention Week has been observed in the week of October 9 since the 1920s, marking the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. This year’s week was October 4 through 10, and the National Fire Protection Association’s theme for the second year running is lithium-ion batteries: “Charge into Fire Safety: Safe Charging Is a Superpower.” The month-long version is what our fire company observes, and it lands at the right time, because the heating season is the fire season. Furnaces come on, space heaters come out, chimneys that have not been cleaned get lit, and the house is closed up tight.

The ten minutes

Press the test button on every smoke alarm. There should be one on every level, including the basement, and one in or outside every bedroom. If any alarm is more than ten years old (the date is printed on the back), replace it; New York now requires new battery alarms to have a sealed ten-year battery, so you will not be changing a 9-volt again. If yours still takes a replaceable battery, change it when the clocks go back on Sunday, November 1.
Check the carbon monoxide alarm. State law has required one in every home with a fuel-burning appliance or an attached garage since 2010. Furnaces, wood stoves, gas ranges, generators and cars in the garage all make carbon monoxide, and it has no smell. One on each level, near the bedrooms.
Walk the plan. Two ways out of every bedroom, a meeting place outside (the mailbox, a neighbor’s porch), and the rule that nobody goes back in. Do it with the kids once with the lights off. A modern house fire can make a room unsurvivable in under three minutes, which is why the alarm and the plan matter more than the extinguisher.
Give heat its space. Three feet of clear space around a space heater, wood stove or furnace. Space heaters plug straight into the wall, never a power strip, and go off when you leave the room or go to bed.
Look at where the chargers are. This is the national theme, and it is new enough that most of us have not thought about it. Phones, laptops, e-bikes, scooters, cordless tools and toys all run on lithium-ion batteries. Charge them on a hard surface, not a bed or couch; use the cord and charger that came with the device; unplug when full; and keep e-bikes and scooters out of the house and away from the door you would leave by. A damaged or swollen battery goes to the county’s household hazardous waste collection, never the trash.

The chimney, before the first fire of the season

The fire company’s other autumn post, from September 24, passed along the state Office of Fire Prevention and Control’s chimney sheet, and it earns its own stop on the list because chimneys are among the most common places a house fire starts in New York. The leading cause is creosote, the tarry buildup from burning wood, and a chimney that is dirty, blocked or cracked can send smoke and carbon monoxide back into the house as easily as it can catch fire. The state’s guidance, condensed:

Have the chimney inspected once a year by a qualified chimney sweep, and cleaned if the sweep says so. Do it now, before the first cold snap, when the sweeps’ calendars are still open.
Burn only well-seasoned hardwood. Green or soft wood makes creosote.
Put a cap on the chimney, and have the sweep confirm the flue has a proper liner.
After a violent storm or a lightning strike, have it looked at inside and out before you use it again.
A wood or coal stove sits at least 36 inches from the wall, on an approved stove board, with nothing that burns near the stove or its connector pipe.
If you suspect a chimney fire (a roar, a rumble, flames or dense smoke from the top of the chimney), get everyone out and call 911 from outside. Do not try to put it out yourself.

What our own fires taught

Speigletown has had a house fire in each of the last three years, and the pattern is worth noticing. On Christmas morning 2023, two people were displaced. In 2024 on Fogarty Road, a driver passing by saw smoke and helped a neighbor out. In 2025 a house was lost and all three residents got out. In each case the people were fine and the house was not, which is the right way around, and in each case the thing that made the difference was early warning: someone noticed in time. A working alarm is the neighbor who is always driving by. The 13th Street fire in Troy this fall, which took three lives, is the other outcome.

Two Speigletown-specific notes

Generators. When the power goes out, the portable generator goes outside, at least 20 feet from the house, exhaust pointed away from windows, never in the garage with the door open. Carbon monoxide from a generator in a garage can kill in minutes, and the alarm in the house is the only thing that will tell you.
Burning. Leaf and brush season is here, and open burning of brush is allowed on your own property only under the state’s rules; leaves and garbage never. Call county dispatch’s non-emergency line before a controlled burn so a neighbor’s 911 call does not roll the trucks. The rules are on our public safety page.

If you want help

The fire company’s volunteers are at the station on Thursday evenings from 7 to 9; that is the time to stop in with a question about alarms or a plan. The company is always recruiting, and it has a new chief this year. If you cannot afford alarms, the American Red Cross installs free smoke alarms through its Sound the Alarm program; the Eastern New York chapter takes requests online. And come to Town Hall on October 25 for the company’s Truck or Treat, which is the fire service’s favorite way of meeting the next generation.

Sources: the Speigletown Fire Company’s October 6, 2026 post, and its September 24 post sharing the New York State Office of Fire Prevention and Control’s “Chimney Fire Safety” sheet (dhses.ny.gov/ofpc); the National Fire Protection Association’s Fire Prevention Week 2026 campaign (October 4 to 10, theme “Charge into Fire Safety: Safe Charging Is a Superpower”); New York’s carbon monoxide alarm requirement for residences (2010) and its 2019 law requiring sealed ten-year batteries in new battery-powered smoke alarms; our coverage of the 2023, 2024 and 2025 Speigletown fires and the 2026 Troy fire. Safety guidance is drawn from NFPA and the U.S. Fire Administration’s public materials. The note that volunteers are at the station Thursday evenings is from the company’s own flyer for its BBQ orders.