Hidden Fire Hazards at Home: A Survival Guide
A fire leaves nothing behind. Mahmut Özkan, who responded to more than 7,000 fires with the Istanbul Fire Department between 1988 and 2010, explains the hazards we unknowingly keep at home, the small details that save lives during a gas leak, and the answer to the question run or wait? when a fire breaks out. In part two: the explosion risk behind a closed door and the invisible killer in smoke.
The 30-Second Summary
- A fire is a personal rescue situation. A room fire reaches roughly 550 °C in the first 5 minutes and approaches 1,000 °C within an hour; the human body is in mortal danger above 42 °C. You protect yourself first.
- The only cure for panic is repetition. Turkey’s Occupational Health and Safety Law No. 6331 makes fire training and drills mandatory; people who rehearse decide faster and better.
- Electricity is now the leading cause of fires: chargers left plugged in, counterfeit adapters, extension leads and kettles left to boil dry. Unplug devices you are not using.
- Natural gas is lighter than air, LPG is heavier. Natural gas collects at the ceiling, LPG at the floor. During a leak never touch a light switch, and never block the vent at the top of a kitchen window.
- Check the door when a fire breaks out: if smoke and heat are heavy, close it, seal the gaps with wet towels, and wait at the farthest point near a window after giving 112 your address and floor.
- If smoke is "breathing" in and out under your front door when you come home, do not open it. Letting oxygen in can trigger a backdraft explosion. Wait for the fire brigade.
Fire Works Like a “Cleaning Agent”
The definition is simple: fuel, heat and oxygen come together and become a fire that grows and does damage beyond human control. Özkan compares fire to a cleaning agent, because a fire leaves nothing behind.
In the Kahramanmaraş earthquake a person was pulled alive from the rubble after 173 hours. Had there been a fire in that rubble, the same person would have died in far less than a day. Temperatures at a fire scene reach hundreds of degrees within minutes; even how close you can get is limited.
This is an abnormal moment. Hormones surge, excitement scatters your thoughts, and time runs out before the brain can assemble the right decision. We call it panic, and a panicking person cannot act correctly. The only known way to reduce it is frequent repetition, training and drills.
“A fire is a personal rescue operation. You must protect yourself first, because even how close we can get to a fire is limited.”
A Fire Warns You Three Times
Combustion is the chemical reaction of a solid, liquid or gaseous fuel with heat and oxygen. Under our control that reaction becomes a meal, a fabric or a table; once it escapes control, it is called fire. As a fire starts it gives three signals in order, and with each one your chance to intervene shrinks.
With Precautions, Fire Goes Out
A fire can be extinguished. With detection and alarm systems, the right type of extinguisher and a trained person, a fire can be brought under control in its first minutes. The problem is not the fire itself, but being caught unprepared.
Hazards You Feed at Home Without Noticing
According to a State Institute of Statistics compilation that Özkan cites, 43% of the more than 243,000 fires recorded in Turkey between 1923 and 2000 were caused by cigarettes. Indoor smoking bans brought that share down; today, with more appliances and ageing wiring, electricity causes the most fires. If you don’t know your natural gas, your LPG or your electrics, the film has a name: “The Stranger at Home”.
Devices Left Plugged In
Every charger plugged into the extension lead behind the TV draws current. The coils in non-original adapters can’t handle that current and overheat — and there is always something flammable nearby. A fire can start at home while you are at a wedding.
- Unplug devices you are not using
- Use switched sockets and extension leads
- Avoid counterfeit chargers and adapters
- Even a TV on standby uses ~9 kWh a year
Kitchen: Three Classic Starts
In the 10.5 years Özkan attended incipient fires, kitchen causes were always the same: food forgotten on the stove, grease built up in uncleaned hoods and flues, and a plugged-in kettle left to boil dry. The element overheats and turns into an open flame.
- Never leave the house with food on the stove
- Have the hood filter and flue cleaned regularly
- Don’t run a kettle dry; unplug it after use
Cigarettes and Sleep
A poorly extinguished cigarette butt or a dropped match can leave a grass fire behind you — if there is a possibility, there will be an incident. In fires that start during sleep, people are first suffocated by smoke; someone who has been drinking will not wake up.
- Don’t smoke in bed or on the sofa
- Put butts out completely with water or sand
- Fit smoke detectors in bedrooms
Never Throw Water on Burning Oil
Hot cooking oil is at 180–240 °C, while water boils at 100 °C. Water poured on burning oil flashes into steam instantly, expands hundreds of times in volume and blasts burning oil across the room. For the same reason, water is applied to metal and vehicle fires only from a distance and in a controlled way.
Instead: turn off the heat, put the lid on the pan or cover it with a fire blanket, and cut off the oxygen. Keep the correct type of extinguisher in the kitchen.
Natural Gas or LPG? Your Response Depends on It
Surviving a gas leak depends on knowing whether the gas is lighter or heavier than air. Once gas in a confined space reaches its explosive limits, even the tiny spark of flicking a light switch can become a disaster within seconds. Natural gas is odourless; a sharp, garlic-like odorant (mercaptan) is added so that leaks can be noticed.
Natural Gas
LIGHTER THAN AIRIt rises and collects near the ceiling, so move low, crouching, in a room with a leak. The vent at the very top of a kitchen window is there to let leaking gas escape — don’t block it with newspaper or cloth because it lets in cold air.
LPG (Bottled Gas / Autogas)
HEAVIER THAN AIRIt sinks to the floor and pools in pits and basements, where it is very hard to clear. That is why storing or using LPG cylinders below ground-floor level is dangerous and prohibited in Turkey. During a leak, stay upright and keep your head away from the floor.
In both cases: without touching light switches, doorbells or phones, open the windows, close the valve, leave the area, and call the gas emergency line (187 in Turkey) or 112 from outside.
Hidden Fire Hazards at Home and Gas Leaks
In this part, retired firefighter Mahmut Özkan explains why fire kills so quickly, the electrical and kitchen hazards at home, the right response to natural gas and LPG leaks, and how to choose between escaping and waiting when a fire breaks out in a multi-storey building.
During a Fire: Evacuation, Closed Doors and the Invisible Killer
Surviving once a fire has started depends on a few correct decisions in the first minutes. The steps below are the opposite of the mistakes Özkan saw thousands of times in the field.
Building Fire: Run or Wait?
Example: you are on the third floor of a five-storey building and a fire breaks out on the first floor. If the seat of the fire is near the stairs, the stairwell fills first and you cannot get out that way. The decision is made the moment you check the door.
Check the Door
If smoke and heat rush in when you open the door, close it immediately — it means you can’t use the stairs. If there is no smoke and the stairwell is clear, leave the building calmly and quickly.
Seal the Gaps With Wet Towels
Wrap the bottom and edges of the door with wet towels or cloths to keep toxic gases out of your room. Close the interior doors too, to cut off air circulation.
Cut the Power, Close Openings
Switch off the main breaker and close windows, doors and flues — except the window on the side away from the fire. The goal is to stop smoke and oxygen flowing towards you.
Go to the Farthest Point, Near a Window
Move to the part of the home farthest from the fire with access to the outside — a balcony or window — make yourself visible and call for help. If there is running water you can cool yourself in the bathroom, but pipes are often damaged in a fire and the water may stop.
Call 112: Address, Floor, Position
Say clearly: “I am in this building, on this floor, in this room” — and stay there. Standards require fire stations to be sited so crews arrive within minutes; traffic may delay them, but the ladder crew must know exactly where you are.
Don’t Jump — Think It Through
Falling, breaking a leg or being overcome by smoke while trying to escape is far more dangerous than waiting. In old buildings without a fire escape, consider controlled last-resort solutions such as knotting bedsheets to reach just the floor below.
Before You Open Your Door Coming Home
You come back from an evening out and put the key in the lock — but a fire started inside while you were away. When the oxygen level in a closed space falls below about 16%, flaming combustion stops — yet the space remains hot, full of flammable gases and starved of oxygen.
Do not open the door until the fire brigade arrives
- The oxygen rushing in as you open the door causes a sudden flare-up; a tongue of flame reaches out through the door towards you.
- If smoke is being pushed out and sucked back in through the gaps around or under the door — as if breathing — pressure has built up inside. This is the warning sign of a backdraft explosion.
- Opening the door in that situation causes an explosion. Move away, call 112 and warn your neighbours.
- If possible, seal the gap under the door from the outside to limit, however slightly, the oxygen getting in.
- Cracking the door open while lying on the floor is a firefighter’s job, done with protective gear, a branch and a water-fog curtain. Civilians must never try it.
What Is Inside the Smoke?
In fires, people usually die from smoke, not flames. In today’s homes full of synthetic materials and in industrial fires, smoke contains — according to Özkan — between 250 and 350 kinds of toxic gas. They can be grouped into three:
/// Mixing hydrochloric acid, bleach and nitric acid at home produces toxic chlorine gas. People have died cleaning with such mixtures.
After you escape a fire
- Don’t say “I’m fine.” If you were exposed to smoke, let the medical team assess you.
- Carbon monoxide and cyanide poisoning can show symptoms hours later; your blood values need to be checked.
- “Eat some yoghurt, it will pass” is not a treatment. Go to hospital and stay under a doctor’s observation.
The Invisible Killer: Smoke and Toxic Gases
In the second part, Mahmut Özkan covers where to wait for the fire brigade, the flare-up and backdraft risk behind a closed door, preserving evidence at the fire scene, mandatory emergency training and the groups of toxic gases found in smoke.
“A Fire Scene Is a Battlefield”
Özkan’s career in the fire service began in 1988 and ended in 2010; in that time he attended roughly 7,000–8,000 fires. In the years before natural gas became widespread in Istanbul, stove and gas-cylinder fires were so frequent that crews ran from one call to the next without time to eat.
The most important thing for a firefighter at a fire scene is preserving evidence. An object needlessly moved during extinguishing can take away the most valuable finding from the expert who later determines the cause of the fire.
The second rule: the cause of a fire is not shared at the scene. A hasty comment such as “it was set deliberately” or “it was the electrician’s fault” can lead to someone being wrongly targeted. Information at the scene is raw; it matures at the fire station, in the expert report and in the judicial process. The only sentence for the news: “The cause of the fire is under investigation.”
“A fire scene is a battlefield; its secrets stay there. Information matures at the fire station and in the expert report.”
- Under Turkey’s Occupational Health and Safety Law No. 6331, fire training and emergency drills are mandatory in workplaces.
- Apartment blocks and residential complexes are also covered by emergency planning and training; assembly areas and evacuation plans must be set in advance.
- Emergency teams: firefighting, rescue, protection, first aid and technical — each with named members and duties.
- Good training is effective, not long: no filler, only what you can use. Discuss “What do we do if there’s a fire?” with your family too.
“The cheapest price for preventing fire is education. The better trained you are, the less you panic, and the faster and more correctly you decide.”
Frequently Asked Questions
Where do most home fires start?+
During a natural gas leak, should I crouch or stand?+
Can I block the vent in my kitchen window?+
Should I run immediately when there is a fire in my building?+
What is a backdraft and how can I recognise it?+
I escaped a fire and feel fine. Should I still go to hospital?+
8 Things You Can Do Today
None of these steps requires a big investment; each is something Özkan found missing at real fire scenes.
Mahmut Özkan
Retired Istanbul firefighter (1988–2010) who attended roughly 7,000–8,000 fires. For over 20 years he has provided fire and emergency training to institutions and retail chains, fire-code compliance inspections and expert-witness / expert-opinion support.