Westmeath Firefighter Warns Of Forgetting About The Straightener

Written 1 month ago by Angel Croitor

The Dublin Fire Brigade caused quite a stir over the weekend when they shared pictures of hair straighteners melted and charred from over heating.

Pat Hunt, Senior Assistant Chief Fire Officer for Westmeath, informed us of the dangers of unattended hair straighteners and how oversight can you cost you not only your wardrobe but potentially your life.

“Irrespective of the brand they get really, really hot – boiling water has a temperature of 100 degrees, the deep fat frier is 180 degrees, and hair straightener will get up to in excess of 200 degrees.”

Pat did a show a couple of months back with us on Midlands Today where he detailed how someone set fire to their bedroom after using a mobile charger on a tablet.

In relation to hair straighteners the main culprit to watch out for is where you place the hair straightener and what you may accidentally cover it with. The majority of hair straightener users place them on the floor, after unplugging them, and forget about it’s placement and end up covering it with clothes they decided not to wear out on the night. This creates a “perfect mix for a fire to take off”.

Pat advises that after you use a hair straightener you must bring it somewhere where it doesn’t have access to flammable material ie. carpets, duvets, wood floors, etc. and let it get rid of the heat naturally. Any cool or hard surface that cannot catch on fire is perfect for this.

The product itself isn’t fail safe either – the more expensive brands will have an automatic heat detector where it will drop it’s heat after reading it’s temperature. Most cheaper brands do not have this fail safe and it isn’t much of a fail safe if the hair straightener also has an in built system that heats the straightener back to optimal temperatures once it’s reached it’s lowest limit.

So a word of caution to all the girls rushing to get ready for the weekend or an event to mind where they place their scalding hair straighteners and a word to their gents – you may have to worry about worse things than being late so keep it in mind because you never know when it may save your life.

Have you any experiences with straighteners or gadgets being left on for hours on end? Tell us over at midlandstoday@midlandsradio.fm