Sorry for the extreme length, but I posted this not only to tell a story, but to warn everyone about the real possibility of fires. If I need to move this post somewhere else or remove it, please tell me. In my house, we have some very unsafe light fixtures that are designed to resemble candles. They have no shade, and are slightly hook shaped giving the possibility of things like curtains and towels being snagged or hung on them. They are all over my house, some being mounted low enough to easily hit my head on. These lights are extremely unsafe but have been kept to preserve the historic value our house has, as it was built in 1925. We learned of their fire hazard the hard way, twice so far. First time was in February. A cleaning lady we had hired was in our master bedroom. In this room leading onto a balcony is a door with two large and heavy velvet curtains about 4 inches away from the previously mentioned light fixtures when they were fully opened. I always knew they were very likely to catch fire, but I had a slight “It will never happen to me” attitude about it. Anyways, she was about to sweep under the curtains, so she hung them up on the lights and turned them on right before she left the room and went downstairs. The curtains caught fire and created very large amounts of thick grey smoke, setting of the hardwired smoke detector at the other side of the room. At the time I was upstairs when the smoke detectors went off, and I immediately assumed that it was a false alarm, because all but two of the hardwired smokes in our house are BRK 4120Bs that were installed when the house was renovated. I ran downstairs and smelled the faint smell of smoke. I started to panic as I ran into the master bedroom and saw that the light had burned a hole straight through the curtain that was now on fire. I immediately turned off the light and ran with my brother to the kitchen, where we grabbed a small Kidde BC extinguisher. We used it on the fire, but because the extinguisher was too small and the wrong type it didn’t put the entire fire out. At this point the wireless smoke detector in the hallway in front of the master bedroom went off and activated our Vista 20P, calling the fire department. After about 30 seconds, I was outside, thinking the fire was out when I hear shouting to bring in the garden hose. It is quickly used to completely extinguish the fire. The FD arrive and help us clear the smoke, but everything in the bedroom is covered in ash, sodium bicarbonate, and water. It was a huge mess that took about a week to clean up. Now to the second fire. A friend of my mom is staying with us while she is gone on a business trip over the weekend, and throughout yesterday she was helping us do laundry in the basement. Illuminating the basement stairway is one of those candle lights, and laundry is often placed on the stairs below it before it gets washed. I am not sure when, but two towels are placed on the light, and right before my brother, sister, and I are about to go to sleep the light is turned on and the towel catches fire. The same wireless smoke detector goes off and wakes us up. I run out of the bedroom and grab one of the five extinguishers we had bought after the first fire. I pull the pin and dump the entire contents onto the flaming towels that were now in the floor. The fire is out, but I soon realize that 5 pounds of monoammonium phosphate is now covering everything in the basement. Oh well. At least it isn’t on fire. Now, to everyone in the FA community, if you have a security system, install smoke detectors on it. If you have a hobby system covering your house, get smoke detectors and turn it into a real life safety system, and if you don’t have them, buy fire extinguishers. They are equally as important as fire alarms. Alarms will warn you and save your life, but extinguishers will save the lives of those who may not be able to evacuate and everything you and your family own. I urge everyone who reads this to take their hobby more seriously and use it and their knowledge to make their homes and families safer. If you think a fire will never happen in your home, think again. It happened to me twice, so why could the same not happen to you? Again, sorry for the long and potentially off topic post. I just want to make sure no one had to go through what I did.