In this episode of Ready Radio, host John Rush tackles the intricacies of home insurance with a focus on fire preparedness. With countless messages and questions from listeners, John revisits the crucial aspects of having the right insurance policy in place to protect against total loss from fire. He outlines the vital questions to ask your insurance agent and emphasizes the importance of understanding your policy’s coverage limits, especially concerning replacement values.
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This is Ready Radio, preparing you to be ready for anything, now.
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Here’s your survival guide for Ready Radio, John Rush. And it is Ready Radio, KLZ 560. Thanks for tuning in today. We appreciate it. July the 25th. And I appreciate you listening. If you’re listening to a replay of this show, you know what day it is. And again, we thank you very much. Bill Anderson joins us most of the time. He is out today, so I appreciate all the help that Bill gives us. And for those of you that listen to Bill and want to know about some of the things that he has and has going on, from some of his defense classes to some of his gun training and so on, it is prep.com. The number two, so prep2protectco.com, prep2protectco.com. Last week, we talked about fire, fire safety, being prepared for all of that, and really got off on talking about the insurance sides of things. Are you properly insured and so on? And I had multiple questions. Text messages and emails after last week’s program that I thought I would go ahead and recap a few things we talked about last week in case you didn’t get a chance to join us and maybe don’t have a chance to go back and listen to the podcast or the recording. I’ll cover a couple of those things briefly today because I had some people that just – I think it’s because, frankly, a lot of agents don’t – instruct, don’t train well enough on what people should be looking for when it comes to insurance. In other words, replacement values and things along those lines. And as we all know, and I hope everybody knows, not all insurance is created equal. What I mean by that is not every policy is the same. Not every company is the same. Not every company handles the replacement of personal items the same, for example. Some will give you a full value out of those items that you lost. Others will depreciate said items. Some require receipts. Others you can have videography, things like that. It really varies from insurance company to insurance company, and it’s super important that you ask them that if there’s a total loss, How does it work? So fire comes through, wipes out everything. And I’ll get into some of the other things in a moment that insurance won’t cover as well because I didn’t get a chance to talk about that last week. But when it comes to fire, which is what we were talking about last week, you have a total loss of a fire. There’s nothing left. It’s ashes. And I’ve seen that. I’ve experienced that, where you’re sifting through the ash pile just to even see if there’s anything memory-wise you’re trying to dig out of the pile because if a fire gets bad enough, there will be nothing left. And the question is, what does your policy look like in relation to that and will you be covered? And some, I get it, some would say, well, you know, geez, John, the chance of that ever happening is, you know, it’s really, it’s slim to none. Is it? Is it? You know, people that live next to the ocean in Hawaii probably thought the same thing. People that lived up in the superior Louisville area where, yeah, there were some open areas around them, but not in a wooded area like we have in our foothills. I can guarantee you they didn’t think that way. Now, people that live in the mountains, you can sort of at times expect forest fires and things like that to get started. And it’s not a surprise that homes and structures are lost. But even then, I don’t think most people think that it’s going to happen to them. And we’ll get into some of this today. Even if you’ve got a house in those areas, how much of a buffer do you have from the trees to the house and so on? Even people that have really big buffers and you do everything you’re supposed to, you trim everything back, cut all the trees down, make sure nothing’s close to your house and so on. Folks, it can still happen. even in those situations. Again, look at what happened up in the Louisville, Superior, East Boulder area, Southeast Boulder area, where fire was started on the west side of Highway 93 and literally just ran through the dry grass, the brush, things like that. And the 100-mile-an-hour wind just kicked that up. And once a structure started, it just went from structure to structure to structure, and that’s what it does. So, again, a lot of people think, oh, it’s never going to happen to me. Why should I worry about it? Why should I pay any extra in insurance when I don’t need to? Well, you don’t have to, by the way. You don’t have to pay extra in insurance is my point. I think far too many people, my son and I have talked about this numerous times, far too many people use insurance like they would their health care policy. By the way, I don’t think most people use their health care policy correctly either. They go to the ER far too much. They go to urgent care far too much. That’s a discussion for my daily show. But when it comes to insurance, people use it far too much. Insurance should be, in my opinion, for catastrophic events only. Folks, I don’t even cover windshield replacement. I don’t carry windshield replacement, I should say. Why? Because I want to save money on the premium, and I’ll replace the windshield on my own if needed. I don’t need to pay coverage for every car that I own year after year after year when I may not need it anyways. So there’s ways to save money on the insurance side, especially when it comes to your home and catastrophic loss with fire and so on. And we’ve got multiple sponsors that can help you with that, by the way. And the reality is you really need to sit down and evaluate that because most people are – what I mean by overinsured is – They’re overinsured on the deductible side, underinsured on total policy. So in other words, they want a really low deductible, and because they don’t want to spend a bunch of money but they’ve got a low deductible, they cap or they lower other parts of their policy, and you should be doing the opposite. You should be literally asking, as long as you can afford it, you should be asking for the highest possible deductible, especially on your house. and covering it as much as you can, as much as you can afford. And again, every insurance company has the ability to really tell you this is what going rates are for your type of home, its finishes and so on. This is what the per square foot cost is going to be to replace it. And here’s a little tip for everybody. Add to that. Add to that. Because the one thing that is not going to get factored in is a lot of the ancillary things that it takes to rebuild a home that the insurance companies themselves aren’t even factoring in. And I’m not talking about permits and coming back up to code. Most of your policies will include a recode and things like that. No, I’m talking about just making sure that you’ve got enough to cover the rebuilding of what you own. In most cases, most don’t have enough. It’s why you see places like… Superior, Hawaii, even the mountain towns, things don’t get rebuilt right away. And it’s not because it’s slow and you can’t find enough workers. It’s because people don’t have enough insurance money to even go back through that, so they don’t. So those structures don’t get rebuilt. In a lot of cases, land gets sold. Somebody else will come in, buy, rebuild it, and so on. And the original owners of never rebuild because they can’t afford to. And remember, too, that there’s a lot of people that have quote-unquote equity that they’ve built into their home or that they’ve acquired in their home. We’ll use a $750,000 house that maybe you owe $500,000 on. The problem is most people will insure it for a lower amount. They’ll get enough to cover their mortgage. And when there’s a catastrophic total loss, there’s not enough to cover everything, maybe enough to cover the mortgage, and that’s about it. And oh, by the way, you’ve lost all your equity as well. And it’s why you see places like that Louisville Superior area taking so long to get rebuilt is because there wasn’t enough insurance on the front side. Now, again, I got all sorts of questions on this, some particular questions. And what I will tell you is I can’t answer individual questions because I’m not an insurance agent. I’m not a broker. I don’t work for those insurance companies. I know enough about it because of being through some of these things. throughout the year so I can instruct on what to do and what questions to ask. But it ultimately comes down to you and your broker slash agent and what you’re determining to do along those lines. One of the other big changes that’s out there, and this goes along the roof sides of things, and Roof Savers of Colorado, one of our great sponsors, some policies are canceling you because of the age of the roof. And they don’t even know what your roof looks like, but they’re canceling it. Dave, Dave Hart, he has the ability to get with your insurance company, treat your roof, extend the life of… keep your insurance intact, save you a boatload of money, and by the way, help even on the fire end of things by rejuvenating your roof at the same time. So there’s all sorts of things along those lines that he can help with. And like I said last week, the biggest thing you can do is A, sit down with your agent annually, make sure you’re insured properly, Make sure you’re writing out the things that you really have and want to be insured for. Now, I’ll say this. There’s some personal items that, you know, kind of goes back to the deductible end of things. Do you really want to insure every single personal item you’ve got? You may not want to. You may have a TV, for example, a flat screen or something that’s hanging on the wall that, no offense, they’ve gotten down in value so much that do you even want to insure that anymore? If you had to just start over, would you just go buy another one and not worry about it? Those are the type of decisions that you have to make when it comes to what am I going to insure when it comes to even my personal belongings. And remember also that jewelry collections and, you know, guns and things like that, every insurance company is going to handle those differently. Some will include those in the policy. Others won’t include them at all, and you need a completely separate writer or, in some cases, policy to cover those particular items. You have to ask your agent. Don’t just assume that, oh, my guns are inside of my personal property. I’m covered. Maybe not. Maybe not. And by the way, that includes even theft. If somebody got in and stole all of them, would they be covered? It depends. You have to ask your insurance agent and the company, am I covered or am I not? And someone say, well, I don’t want them knowing I got guns. Well, you don’t have a choice because those are those are what they call line items. Those are listed items. Those don’t get included in the regular personal property end of things. Now, some might, and again, don’t come back to me and send me a text message, well, my insurance company does. Every insurance company is a little bit different. Some may, but I can tell you right now from personal experience, most don’t. When it comes to high-end jewelry and guns, they don’t. It’s not included. It has to be lined out or it’s not going to be included in your policy if there’s any kind of a loss, theft, things like that. The other thing, and this goes more to the car sides of things, but look at where you’re at even on your auto policies. And again, same thing. I had this conversation with a couple of my clients this past week. If you have some older vehicles, what I mean by older is they’re completely paid off. You don’t need full coverage on them anymore. You’ll handle your side of the aisle if something happens. You carry liability and maybe you want to carry some uninsured motorist. That’s completely up to you. But at the end of the day, if it gets totaled and it’s your fault, you’re out. Typically speaking, that’s not going to happen. Most, and be careful how I say this, most older responsible adults, their cars typically aren’t totaled by themselves. They’re typically totaled by someone else. It’s why rates for teen drivers are extremely expensive. It’s also why when you get further up the ladder in age, it gets expensive again because all of the algorithms, all insurance companies know, here’s our two pockets of highest risk, and they charge accordingly. So, again, another way to save money on the insurance side of it is, A, ask what your windshield coverage is like, and then, B, what are you really covering and do you need to have full comprehensive, full collision coverage on that vehicle that’s completely paid for that, by the way, might be 10 years old or older. And those are things, again, you need to ask your insurance company and or your agent because those are ways to save money. People don’t realize that. In fact, a lot of agents won’t even present some of the things that I just mentioned to you. I’m sorry to say this, but it’s not the case with Paul Leuenberger, who’s one of our great sponsors here. It’s not the case with him. But they make money. They make commissions off that policy. more they can sell you a policy and what’s weird is it’s the total policy so even if they raise the limits higher the deductible you know raise the deductible still make sure you’re fully covered the policy itself doesn’t change but in a lot of cases that’s a harder sell and a lot of agents won’t present it that way in fact i’ll tell you straight up most agents won’t even tell you what your top of the line deductible is because they know most people will never go that high They don’t even present it because their assumption is nobody’s going to go that high on the deductible anyway, so I just won’t present it. So you have to specifically ask, what is the highest deductible I can have on cars, on my house, and so on? And then I talk about this a lot when I have the agents on. I have Paul Lundberger on directly. If you need to and you’ve got enough assets, make sure you have an umbrella policy as well. That’s kind of separate on the liability thing, but just make sure you’re covered on that. So I want to make sure that I covered the insurance side one more time because I had enough questions that came in over this past week on last week’s show asking about some of those things and people really thinking that I never really thought that I may not be fully covered because – It costs more to rebuild than you think it does. One other thing I want to throw in there that I didn’t talk about last week. Don’t always assume the foundation will be good. Because a lot of times that’s what agents will also do. Oh, you know, chances of you having to replace the foundation are pretty slim. So, you know, we can kind of take that part of it out. Yeah, don’t be so sure of yourself. You get a hot enough fire that’s a total loss. It destroys the entire home and it’s in ashes. You’re going to put a foundation in. which means you’re also going to redo some plumbing and a bunch of other things. In fact, by that point in time, you’re probably building a different house. Doubtful you’re even going to rebuild the house you have right now. So those are things to remember on the insurance end of things. Again, this show is about being prepared, making sure you have things handled on the front side. And the fact of the matter is, most don’t do what I’m talking about, and they don’t have their insurance structured correctly across the board. All right, we’ll come back. We’ll keep going. I’ve got other things on the fire preparedness things I want to cover here on Ready Radio. Our website, ready-radio.com. We’ll be right back. This is KLZ 560.
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Appreciate you all joining us. And back to the whole being prepared, fire, insurance, all of that, one other thing I was going to add to the insurance side that’s not fire-related but it does have to do with insurance is if you’re somebody that is in an area that potentially could have a flood, and you don’t have any flood insurance, you are not covered, period. Now, if you have a house and there’s a basement and you get some flooding because of a pipe breakage or something along those lines, yes, in those cases you will be covered. But if you have flat-out water came through the neighborhood, You’ve seen a lot of these pictures, videos, and things like that from different places around the country, including just last night. I think there was some bad flooding out in the Greeley area. If you’re flooded because of that and there’s damage done to your home, you’re not covered. Now, in some areas, you have to buy flood insurance. It’ll be a requirement of your mortgage company and so on. But there are areas that can still be flooded that are not required to have flood insurance. You can still get flood insurance. But if you have any kind of a major water intrusion, damage, things like that, you will not be covered. And I think there’s a huge misconception along those lines where people think, well, you know, if water comes in my basement or water comes in my crawl space or whatever the case may be, you know, I’m covered. No, you’re not. Not unless you have flood insurance. Even the mitigation of, you know, maybe there wasn’t a whole lot of damage, but you end up with some mold and some things along those lines. It will not be covered. You will be on your own. on that end of things so it’s something where for some of you depending upon where you live and how close certain ditches and rivers and things like that might be you may want to ask hey if i wanted to get flood insurance what would that cost be not everybody sells it But you can get flood insurance for your home and business, by the way, outside of flood zones. And typically, by the way, if it’s not in a flood zone, it’s pretty inexpensive. But believe me, I think you can talk to anybody that’s been through some floods that you do not want to rely on the federal government to come in and try to make you whole again because chances of you being made whole after a flood are slim to none. Again, you could have total loss, personal belongings and so on. And if it’s a flood and you don’t have flood insurance, you’re not covered. So something to think about for some of you that might be in some areas whereby, you know, who knows? I don’t know what’s around you. You’d have to look. And this is the whole being prepared for these things. Look around what’s near you, what potentially could happen. And are you a higher risk than what even the mortgage company might think? that you are, and then make sure that you’re fully protected. I should have mentioned earlier, too, if you’ve got anything along these lines you want to add, our lines are open 303-477-5600, 303-477-5600, and the text line 307-282-22, 307-282-22. So for those of you that live in the foothills, and I mentioned this a moment ago about the insurance sides of things, Those of you in the foothills or even in like the black forest area that’s down south of us or you live in an area where you just have a lot of trees and things like that that might be around you. Maybe you’re in a fairly wooded area. You know what? Making sure that all trees and things like that, you want a buffer is where I’m going with this. Make sure you have a buffer, fire buffer around your entire house. While it’s great to have really nice, you know, big trees and maturity and all of that kind of stuff, that’s all great until it’s on fire. Because if that catches fire and it’s close enough to your house, well, you already automatically know what’s going to happen next. So it’s one of those things, too, that, by the way, a lot of landscapers do incorrectly because they forget things grow. So, you know, they’ll put a really nice spruce tree and they put it maybe in a little corner of your home. And when it’s small and it’s only about six foot tall, there’s all sorts of room around it. It’s not close to your home. It’s not an issue. But 20 years later, it is. Because by then, it’s probably touching the house. And it’s unfortunate that a lot of these guys don’t think far enough ahead to understand that, hey, we should probably place this further out. They just don’t. They don’t think about that. They don’t do it. And in turn, you end up with vegetation that literally can be right up against the house. Junipers. Evergreens. That’s another one that, as time goes by, they get planted, they’re very small, there’s nice rock and everything all around them, and as time goes by, a decade here, a decade there, another decade, and before you know it, you know, 20, 30 years has gone by, and those things have engulfed the entire front of the house. All of those things that I just mentioned are things that you really need to look at. And in some cases, and I’m sorry to say this, but in some cases, depending upon how old they are and how large they’ve gotten, you may want to just remove them completely. Take them out. The fire hazard alone is such that you probably don’t want them next to the house. So for all of you listening, that’s one of those things where you just need to take a walk around your home. And here’s something else. If you ever wonder, you know, what should I do in some of these areas? I believe, and this is something that you need to double check, but I believe that most fire departments… We’ll help you with some of these things. If you just ask and say, listen, you know, I live at such and such, such and such. I’ve got a lot of vegetation around. I really want to know what I need to do to make sure that I’m fully protected. Believe me, they will come and assist you and help you with that. If you have any any. inkling of doubt of, hey, what should I get rid of? What should I keep? And so on. They will help you with those things. And that’s something to remember is they will definitely do that. Basically, get another set of eyes on what you have going on. Now, as you guys are, in some cases, moving into newer homes. It’s a younger neighborhood. There’s not as much vegetation around. A lot of what I just said, keep that in mind as well. What is the landscapers recommending to be planted? Where are they planting them? What type of bush shrub is it, and what’s that going to look like in 20 years? Not that it’s an issue today. Now, in some cases, it could be an issue even in a decade. Some plants and things grow quickly enough, and they are planted on purpose that way to make things fill in pretty quickly, where it can be a problem fairly fast. It won’t take two decades. So something to think about also on that side of things. Again, being prepared. On the physical sides of things, I touched last week a little bit on just the gas storage and things along those lines, and I had a couple of questions along those lines that came in after the program as well. What do you store fuel in? What’s the best way to do it? Where do you keep it? All those sorts of things. Not everybody has the same situation. Not everybody has an outdoor shed, for example. Some people might have to store that gasoline right in the garage. Now, here’s what I would tell you. And this kind of goes against the preparedness thing for having enough product on hand if there’s a big, you know, whatever, EMP or what have you. But when it comes to fire safety, which is what we’re talking about right now, my feeling is less is better. So having less gas kicking around in containers that can potentially leak and have fumes and so on, you know, so on along those lines, I think less is better. So in other words, if you’ve got a small lawnmower and that’s how you mow your grass, I wouldn’t have any more than two and a half to five gallons in the garage at any given time. Probably keep a two and a half gallon can. The gas tank on most mowers is half a gallon at best. So, yeah, you’re going to fill that can up, you know, once a month or so, but that should be more than enough to handle most of what you’re doing. Now, if you’ve got a, you know, two-stroke of anything, blower… uh you know snow blower for example leaf blower weed eater things like that have two have one two and a half that’s got regular gas and one two and a half that’s got your mixed gas and i wouldn’t i don’t think i would store any more than that in my garage and also along those lines this is another recommendation i have They sell pre-made gas, pre-mixed gas, and ethanol-free gas for your lawnmowers, by the way. It’s more money. But here’s the tip. They sell that at most of your big-box stores, Home Depot, for example, Ace Hardware and others. And you can buy that gas already done, ready to go, and it’s in a metal can with a totally sealed top. Meaning, you may want to just store your gas that way in the future. Now, it’s hard to fill those back up at the pump because the pump is too big for that spout. They kind of do that, or for that neck, they do that on purpose. But you can take a funnel, fill that back up, go to the gas station, fill it up, cap it off. It’s totally sealed. The nice thing about that is it’s easy to transport in your car because there are virtually no leaks in that whatsoever, no smell, no nothing. And that’s nice to store things in because, as I said last week, it’s the fumes that catch and start fire, not the liquid. So just another tip on how to actually handle and store gas around your home and just the chance of having fire that way is just diminished that much more. And as we talked last week, and I’m going to reiterate this again, especially this time of year, but it can even happen in the winter. I lived in a house one time that a house about a block away caught fire. It was in the middle of summer, and it caught fire because somebody had been painting, and they had some stuff on some rags that they had been cleaning up their paint with, and that spontaneously combusted at about 10 o’clock at night. You know, the garage is hot. It gets hotter as the day goes by. They had everything all shut up. And at 10, 1030, it lit up. The only reason we knew it lit up is because I was and I still kind of stay up that late anyways. But I was up and I could hear a lot of sirens and things going on. Looked out. You could see all the smoke and it was about a block away and it was on fire. And again, spontaneously combusted. Nobody was there. Nobody set fire. It wasn’t anything that was done on purpose or anything along those lines. It was just those rags spontaneously combusting, and up it went. So that’s another one of those things where be careful with what you’re using to clean up and so on. And those things sitting can do just that. So, again, these are things that you need to really be paying attention to. And, you know, what you don’t want to do is clean up a bunch of stuff and then, of course, wring those out in the sink because all of that chemical is going to run down into the sewer and so on. You don’t want that. On the same token, you’ve got to be really careful in how you handle those and making sure that you keep those. And the best advice they always tell you is put those in a metal can. If you’re going to store them like that, best thing to do is put them in a metal can. Now, there’s so many things that have been invented today whereby you don’t even need to use rags and stuff. You can use paper products and things like that, and believe it or not, they actually work better than rags do. But do whatever you need to do to make sure that you don’t have anything out in the garage, any places like that, that are spontaneously combusting. This goes along the lines also, though, of how you’re storing your small equipment. Where is that? Is it in your garage? Is it venting? Because a lot of those, by the way, a lot of those lawnmowers and such, they vent in such a way that they’re not sealed. That tank on that mower is not always sealed, usually not. meaning that some of those fumes and stuff are going to leak out. So we’ve got to make sure that we’re taking care of those things as well, don’t have a lot of stuff piled around them, and so on. And the other thing, too, is if you ever lose a gas cap or something like that, never just use a rag and stuff it in, and hopefully that works. Yeah, don’t do anything wrong. Along those lines, that’s another accident waiting to happen. So when it comes to fire, bottom line, make sure that you’re walking through these things, looking from time to time. I haven’t even gotten into the electrical end of things. That’s a whole nother discussion in and of itself, making sure that all of your electrical panels are clean and full, you know. free of debris that includes even some of the outside meters and things like that some of you that have again junipers and plants and things like that that may have grown up against the side of the house given the fact that very few meter men they don’t exist anymore nobody’s coming around looking at those things to see what they look like so in turn you’ve got to check some of those things yourself Are they free of debris? Are they clear? Making sure there’s not a bunch of junk around them, all that sort of stuff as well. Again, anything that you can do to make sure that your place is fire resistant, I guess is what we’re trying to say, as possible. This is something else I want to throw in here. I have seen of late, probably because I’m talking about it. This is the way our social media and the newfangled world we live in works. I have seen this last week especially because of what I talked about last weekend, last Friday, I’ve seen all sorts of things come up on my social media feeds for these like house blankets. whereby you can like cover your entire house with this tinfoil blanket that is supposed to make it more fire resistant. And I’m sure some of you will see some of these things as well. I have no idea how they work. I really don’t, folks. I cannot tell you whether those are worth, you know, some of you especially live in the foothills whereby you’re at a higher risk for fire and so on. I have no idea whether those work or don’t work. No clue. My gut feeling is if they’re covering everything up, including the windows and so on, they might actually help. Because, again, what we’re trying to do is keep oxygen away from the fire. And they may actually – being it’s a big blanket, they may actually do that. Now, how do you get these things on and off and so on? I have not gone down that path. I have not studied any of that. So I really have no idea how that part of it works. It’s interesting, though, that as I was talking about this last Friday – I’ve seen numerous of those show up on my feed talking about fire prevention, fire safety. I’ve had fire extinguisher ads, all sorts of things along those lines. Again, everybody’s listening. We talk about that on a regular basis, and they are, because you don’t get those ads if you’re not talking about stuff. Now, something else, and I happened to be doing this last weekend. Check your fire extinguishers. Are they still good? Do they need refilled? And I’ll tell you right now, if they need refilled, just take them to wherever somebody will take of those and dispose of them properly and go buy a new one. It’s gotten to the point now, cost-wise, it’s not even worth filling. So we talked about this last week with Bill. Make sure that you have the right type of extinguisher for the type of fire you may be encountering in the area that you’re in. So a kitchen versus a bedroom versus the garage, you get my drift. Also talked last week about how some of you that have second stories, it might have bedrooms and things like that and don’t really have any access where if somebody needed to get out, there’s no place to really climb down onto. There’s not a secondary roof or anything like that. You’re going to need a ladder to actually get out of the bedroom. Buy one. Keep it in the closet. Keep it in that room someplace where everybody knows it’s at, especially your kids. even if you’ve got guests that come. Hey, by the way, if there’s a fire, here’s where we keep the rope ladder in case you need to get out the window. Here’s where it’s stored. The last thing we want happening is loss of life because we’re not preparing on the front side for some of these things, and some of these things are so minuscule, and I mean that sincerely. It doesn’t take much effort and time to figure these things out, making sure that you’re all dialed in. Something I didn’t talk about last week that I should have is we’re halfway through the year, Normally you do this when you change the time, but anymore because of our short season of time change from, you know, we spring ahead in the spring, we fall back in the fall. Reality is there’s only about four months in there. You need a different schedule to check all of the batteries and things in your smoke alarms. Smoke, and we now do carbon monoxide as well. So make sure all of those are up to date as well as you’re going through all of this fire prevention stuff and you’re looking around to determine, hey, where am I at? Am I safe? Am I not? Make sure that all of those are set as well. And this is something that, by the way, most don’t have. I have since installed in my place now. I’ve got an older home, so maybe the newer homes with code, it’s automatically in there, but I don’t know. Put a smoke alarm in your garage. And preferably by the door. And again, they’re so cheap and inexpensive anymore that you can add smoke alarms, even if it’s not by code that it’s supposed to be there. Put one in the garage if you don’t have one already. So not only a carbon monoxide alarm in your garage. In fact, I would just buy a combo unit for the garage that does everything. Smoke alarm, carbon monoxide, whole nine yards. Put that out in the garage. You’re set, done, ready to go. So, again, making sure that we’re covered on all fronts along those lines, making sure that we’ve got things done. I want to come back and talk about your family. and just some of the emergency plans in case there is a fire and it’s nighttime, for example. Where are we all meeting? How are we escaping the house? Have you walked through this with your kids? Do they understand to feel a door to see if there’s heat on it before opening it? Things like that. We’ll cover some of those as soon as we come back. Don’t go anywhere. Text line again, 307-282-22. This is Ready Radio, KLZ 560.
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All right, we are back. Radio Radio KLZ 560 talking about fire prevention because as we head down the stretch here, yes, we’re in the monsoon season right now, but that will soon end and things will still be hot and it’ll get dry. And then we’ve always got that season where a lot of our fires actually get ramped up and rolling in Colorado. That can happen from, oh, I don’t know, middle of August or so. and that’ll run all the way until we start getting some some heavier snows and things you know moisture starts coming in sometimes that’s not until november we’ve had some years where that didn’t happen all the way until almost christmas so point being doing this now so that all of you can stay ahead of these things just in case now I am by no means a naysayer, not trying to wish some things in. But you just look at some of the things that we have that have gone on around the country and some of the tragedies that have happened. We don’t want that to be you or us. And there’s ways to avoid some of these things that have even happened in some of those instances. So we want to make sure that we’re prepared on the front side. So back to the whole evacuation and that end of things. And for a lot of you, especially with small kids. I mean teenagers on down. Do they know what to do in the case of a fire? I can remember being a kid, and we would have instructions on this, and folks, I don’t know what happens in the school systems or what people do at home anymore. I remember my dad being really big on… teaching us kids from an early age what to do in the case of a fire. We only lived in a single-story house, and we still used to go through these different things. Back when I was a kid, you’d have the fire drills at school and different things along those lines, and I’m assuming they still do those things, but do they tell you, for example, before you open any door, if you smell smoke and you know there’s a fire, before you open any door, are you feeling the door? You’re teaching your kids, feel the door. If it’s warm, don’t open it. All you’re doing is allowing, you know, the fire into the air. Again, fire, as I always say, fire seeks oxygen. It becomes its own animal. It’s almost like its own living being. I hate to say it that way, but that’s really what it becomes. And it’s literally looking for as much oxygen as it can find. And that’s why you don’t want to open a door if there’s a fire right outside the door. Have you taught your kids, your family members that? I’m guessing. Maybe I’m wrong in this, but I’ll bet you I could go to any gathering area around the metro area, shopping malls, et cetera, and poll people walking around and asking this question. And, Charlie, I’ll bet you I’m not wrong in this. I’ll bet you two out of eight would know how to answer that at best. And I might be high on that number. It might be one out of eight or one out of ten, two out of ten. Folks, here’s my point. I doubt it’s that high. And the reason I say that is because tragically, we watch some of these events happen. We watch people lose their lives, and you have to wonder if they would have had some of this other training, would that have happened in the first place? The other thing they teach kids or just common sense is if there’s a fire, you get down on the floor because the smoke and the heat rises. So get on the floor. Feel the door before you open it. Every bedroom, according to code, is supposed to have an access window out in case you can’t open the door, there’s fire in the hall, then you go to the window and you get out. Have you walked through with your family how the window opens? How does the screen come out? Can you kick the screen out if need be? Does the window open? Does it open easily? Can your five-year-old open the window, for example? These are questions that you need to go through in your family and watch them actually open the window and remove the screen if needed. Can they get out of the house? Can they then jump out through the window? Do they have the ability to climb up in and get out of the window? Do they need some sort of a stepstool or something nearby where they could climb out of the window if need be? Have you been through this as a family, is my point. Have you taught your kids that if the smoke is really that bad, do they have the ability to grab some sort of a washcloth or something along those lines, put it over their face and breathe through that versus just breathing the smoke in on its own? Again, these are things that I was taught. I don’t think I’m exaggerating, Charlie. I was taught these things. I can remember being four or five, six years of age and being taught some of these things. Charlie’s agreeing with me. He can remember doing the same thing. I don’t know if we do this stuff anymore. I think in some ways we’ve gotten so reliant on smoke alarms and things like that that we don’t teach some of these basic safety things to our families anymore because we rely on technology. We rely on the smoke alarm. And I’m just going to tell you, folks, that’s not enough. We need to teach our family members, especially our kids, this is what you do. Keep in mind, those kids, once they learn that, will know that any place they’re at, including someone else’s house, including a business, including anywhere they might be where this might happen, we want to make sure our kids are safe. Teach them how to be. What do you do in a circumstance like this? So have you been through that? Now, once you’ve been through that, have you talked about where the meeting place is? Let’s say everybody has to exit out of an exit window or something along those lines. Where’s your meeting place as a family? So everybody can get counted, count heads. So nobody gets left behind. How are you? Do you have that plan in place? We did as a family. And I can still go. I could go to the old house I grew up in and walk to the place that was our meeting place as kids that we were instructed. If something ever happens, this is where we go and stand. I’m sure, Charlie, you can do the exact same thing because it’s how we were raised. Are you doing this with your kids? Do they know where to go? And once again, if they don’t, fix this. These are all things right now that are very easily fixable. This could be done literally in a night, in an afternoon, in an evening. It doesn’t even have to be written out. You just get everybody together and say, this is our plan. This is what’s going to happen. Something else, too, that it’s typically done by code. But remember, there’s a lot of homes that are built that are way before code. Maybe you’ve got bedrooms that, you know, we’ve talked about bedrooms being upstairs. What if you have a bedroom in the basement? Do your kids have the ability to jump up? Maybe you’re in one of the older homes where the basement windows are higher and you have to crawl through that window and then crawl out of the window well. Do your kids have the ability to do that? Is there a step stool or something there that they could step up on? And then once they’re in the window well, how do they get out? Is there a ladder in there? Do they have the ability to pull themselves up? Keep in mind, this is one thing that we always have to remember. When things like this are happening, it’s chaos. You know, nerves are frazzled. Their heartbeat is racing. There’s adrenaline. There’s all these things going on. You have to make it super easy and regimented where they know exactly what to do if, in fact, this happens. You know, there’s a fire upstairs. You’re now in the basement. Can you even get upstairs? If you can’t get upstairs, now you’ve got to go out the window. Do you have your home set up in a way where they can get out the window? Most of the newer homes now by code, there’s usually a ladder welded to the window well that you can climb up out of. But older homes, folks, those were not made that way. Codes change, and this is why, because accidents happen. And they want to keep people from dying, so they change the code. Now, sometimes I think codes are changed unnecessarily, but in this case where you’ve got ladders built into a window well, that’s a good code. especially some of these where they could literally be four feet deep. Some people, myself included, I’m not sure you could crawl out of a four to five foot deep window well and pull yourself up and out of there. So these are things that, again, go through these things with your family and walk through. If this were to happen, these are the things that I want you to do. So the other thing, too, that I don’t think most families are big on, and I would even have to check my own house on this, a reminder to self, do you have a fire extinguisher in each bathroom? Now, some would say, why? I mean, what’s the chance? You know what? There’s probably more fires that happen in bathrooms than there is kitchens. things like curling irons and things like that that get left and you get the drift. So do you have a fire extinguisher in the bathroom? You don’t need the big huge ones, of course, just those little small little handhelds. And by the way, there’s even some of these fire extinguishers now that are made like glass cleaner in a can. In a setting like that, you don’t need anything major, but do you have something that if a fire started, there’s an ability to put it out? And unfortunately, in bathrooms, a lot of people still use candles and things like that, another combustible. Do you have a fire extinguisher in the bathroom in case there was a fire? I get it. There’s usually water in the bathroom and so on. But again, you’re going through all these things in your head constantly. You know, are people thinking, here’s the other thing, how do I get the water out of the faucet onto the fire? Well, if you don’t have that ability, that’s not going to work real well for you. Yeah, you could try to splash it with your hands, but that’s typically not going to work out real well. A fire extinguisher would be a much better thing to have. So all of these things, where you start thinking through and walking, what we try to do on Ready Radio, walk through your house, walk through your garage. Some of you that live out in the country that might have a shed and a barn and so on, walk through those areas. If you had a fire… How are you going to take care of putting that out? Now, the other thing that everybody should be doing is do you have any kind of a fire safety kit? So if there was a fire, do you have the ability to treat a burn and do some things along those lines before anybody else might show up? Do you have the ability to help in that case? Again, depending upon where you live and how far away emergency vehicles are, some of you listening, we have an audience, by the way, that covers all the way up to Casper, Wyoming. all the way down south to the Raton Pass, all the way east out into Kansas, all the way up northeast into Nebraska. Some of you live a long way away from medical attention. Do you have the ability to handle some of these things if that’s you? I’m thinking especially of John and Cheyenne. He is not near emergency services at all. He’s not five minutes away. So for some of you that might be further out in distance, do you have some of these things? So if something does happen, you’re going to be okay. Your kids especially are going to be okay. So, again, we’re going to talk through insurance, talked about the landscaping end of things, making sure you’ve got everything around the house taken care of, any combustibles. Do you have all of that dialed in? And I think just a quick story, which I don’t think I’ve ever told this story. One of the reasons why for my father the fire thing was so big and probably why all of this was ingrained in me is my grandfather, his dad, back in the old days, and I mean I’m talking old days, back in the, you know, teens, early 20s and so on, a lot of people burned their trash. It was very common. In fact, Charlie, probably common all the way up into probably the 50s and 60s even. People had these cinder-type things, these brick stands. What did they call them, Charlie? Charlie said his family had a 50-gallon barrel. Well, my grandfather, they had one of these concrete brick structures that you would put the trash in and you would burn it. Well… He and his brother were playing around that one day. And they had evidently, you know, those things kind of always smoldered because depending upon how often you burn trash and so on, there might be coals and things that are in there, even though it’s like people that empty the charcoal out and don’t pay attention to it. There’s a lot of fires, by the way, that start that way as well because they think they clean the fireplace out, they clean the barbecue out, whatever, and they forget that those things can stay alive for a day, sometimes even longer, depending upon, you know, the conditions and so on. Well, in this particular case with my grandfather… They were playing around this concrete structure, you know, this brick structure. And my grandfather’s brother fell in. And my grandfather wasn’t strong enough to pull him out, and he died. So you can only imagine how big of a deal fire was to my grandfather that was then passed down to my dad that has then now been passed down to me. And I’ve passed that on to my kids. That’s kind of how those things work. Whenever there’s a tragedy like that, those things get passed down. But, folks, those things can happen. And my point is, don’t let these things happen to you and your family. Fire is one of those things that I think at times, I mean, I respect fire. It’s a great tool. It provides heat. It does so many wonderful things for us that we can’t live without it. Literally, it’s one of those staples in life you cannot live without. On the same token, it can be utterly destructive. It’s like I talk about with AI and things like that. It can be a huge help or it can be utterly destructful. That’s fire. It can be our great asset or it can be a great liability. And what we want to do is control it to where it’s always an asset and it’s always there to help us as a family, our furnaces and our hot water, our water heaters and things like that. That’s really quick. Another thing. Throw this in really quick. Your laundry rooms and your furnace areas, I’ll close with this. Make sure they’re clear of all debris and junk and things like that because those areas can kind of become that area where stuff just gets stuck. I talk to Hunter from Cub Creek a lot, and he’ll verify what I’m saying. A lot of times those become the junk collection rooms. Stuff just gets stuffed in there. and before you know it things get a little tighter a little tighter a little tighter before you know it you can’t even see the furnace or the water heater because there’s so much stuff around it and all of those things can become a combustible and that’s where we want to avoid that and make sure that all of that stuff is good and clean and so on last but not least when it comes to your kids and i hope they know this but do they know who to call in case there’s a major emergency 9-1-1 you I think everybody knows that. But again, one of those things to go over with your kids. If there is something like this that happens, do they know who to call, what to say, where they live, their address, all of those pertinent things. So cover all this with your family. We’ll do another topic next week, but I want to make sure I cover this fire topic thoroughly, I should say, in full, which we did some last week, some this week. So guys, that’s it for today. Ready Radio, go to ready-radio. This is KLZ Radio, and I appreciate you listening.
SPEAKER 08 :
The views and opinions expressed on KLZ 560 are those of the speaker, commentators, hosts, their guests, and callers. They are not necessarily the views and opinions of Crawford Broadcasting or KLZ management, employees, associates, or advertisers. KLZ 560 is a Crawford Broadcasting God and country station.
