Lakeville Fire Promotes Burn Awareness Week

Fire Prevention Tip

Feb. 5-11 is Burn Awareness Week across the state and today we want to talk about scald injury prevention.

The severity of a scald injury depends on the temperature to which the skin is exposed and how long it is exposed. The most common regulatory standard for the maximum temperature of water delivered by residential water heaters to the tap is 120 degrees Fahrenheit/48 degrees Celsius. At this temperature, the skin of adults requires an average of five minutes of exposure for a full thickness burn to occur.

When the temperature of a hot liquid is increased to 140 F/60 C it takes only five seconds or less for a serious burn to occur. Coffee, tea, hot chocolate and other hot beverages are usually served at 160 to 180 F /71-82 C, resulting in almost instantaneous burns that will require surgery. Since immediate removal of the hot liquid from the skin may lessen severity, splash and spill burns may not be as deep as burns suffered in a bathtub. See the American Burn Association website for more information.

http://www.ameriburn.org/preventionEdRes.php

By the Numbers

From January 30, 2012 to February 5, 2012 the responded to 11 calls for service; 1 gas leak, 2 motor vehicle accidents (with injuries), 4 false alarms and 4 good intents.