On Your Side

Make Bath Safety Fun

• Teach your children - from their earliest years - to be safety conscious. An ingenious little bathtub 'toy' from the non-profit No Burns! Project looks like a regular rubber ducky, but in fact is a heat-sending device that tells you or your child when the water is too HOT to get into. Click here for more information on the 'Cool Blue No-Scald Bath Ducky'.

Burn Facts

• Do you know what it means when people say that a burn is a first, second or third degree burn? Find out...

Scald Prevention Hardware

• Scald-protection water mixing devices can be purchased at relatively low costs and be installed on bathroom fixtures. One cautionary note, though: If your home has low water pressure these devices will not be effective. Find out more information on purchasing scald safety devices.

How to Test Your Water Heater Temp

• Warm a tall drinking glass by allowing hot water to run into it for several minutes. When the glass is warm and the tap water has reached its maximum level of heat, fill the glass with hot water and measure its temperature immediately with a submersible thermometer. If you adjust your water heater thermostat down, be sure to wait 24-hours before testing the tap water temperature again. This will give the heater enough time to replace its current water reserves with new water.

Are You a Community Activist?

• The U.S. Fire Administration offers a comprehensive, step-by-step guide for implementing a community-based scald prevention program. The booklet inclues guidelines for working to amend plumbing codes, conducting a project to retrofit homes with anti-scald devices, educating parents and caregivers about prevention, raising public awareness through the media, and evaluating the program. Click here for more information.

Scald Safety Gift Ideas

• Celebrate life events with scald safety items. Housewarmings, new parents, childrens' birthdays, or the incidental small gifts when grandparents come to visit or are thinking about you�can all be opportunities to give meaningful gifts that will protect loved ones from scalds.
• Colorful No-Scald Fork & Spoon sets, which use the same technology as the Bath Ducky, described above, can be sent gift-wrapped, if you like, from The No Burns! Project. The tips of the fork and spoon turn white if the food they touch is too hot for a child's mouth.

Scald Prevention Checklist

• Print this scald-prevention checklist and review it with your family.

Learn More About Burn Foundations

• It's unpleasant to see victims of burns. But it's valuable to help understand the hazards and appreciate why prevention is so important. We strongly recommend visiting a burn foundation website to learn more about how such organizations help burn victims. Here is one person's story who was helped by the Northwest Burn Foundation.