with facts THE simple fact that 2000 people have lost their lives in fires at home in the county over the past ten years is quite a staggering statistic.

Last year alone, we are told today, the majority of 7,500 property fires were also in private house.

Even if they did not result in death or injury it is not difficult to understand how traumatic the effects of these fires will have been.

To lose irreplaceable, treasured, personal belongings, perhaps collected over a lifetime, is a devastating experience.

And however simple the insurance companies make it sound, replacing all those official documents you carefully kept and negotiating the replacement of every toy and item of clothing with an assessor is nothing less than a nightmare.

How welcome then is the news today that Lancashire firefighters are to make a major effort to go out into peoples' homes to spread the vital messages of how to minimise the chances of ordinary householders becoming victims of fire.

Some of the messages may seem obvious to a lot of people - the danger of using candles, particularly in bedrooms being one.

But some messages need to be hammered home again and again. The destruction caused by the overheating of unguarded chip pans has been highlighted many times but almost every weekend someone in East Lancashire comes home from the pub, puts on a chip pan, dozes off and awakes to find their kitchen ablaze.

The need for smoke alarms in every home also cannot be mentioned too often. A very small cash outlay should ensure that if the worst does happen the alarm will be raised early enough for householders to escape safely.

The fire service has to be congratulated for grasping the nettle and deciding to focus some of their strongly cash limited resources on prevention - ie stopping fires from starting rather than putting them out.

The dividends might not be immediate but the initiative shows foresight. The fact that similar efforts with businesses have proved successful augurs well for a future cut in call outs.

Hopefully fire officers will also be able to persuade some parents to instill into their children a respect for fire so that we see a reduction in the number of blazes deliberately started by out-of-control juveniles.