In the next few months, fire experts are going to go to each and every home in the nation and check for fire hazards, advise the families against the dangers, and tell them through demonstrations on how to escape a blaze swiftly.

Today onwards, 217 officers will start educating the community regarding the various issues touching upon topics like where laptops should be placed, and what to do if a saucepan catches fire etc.

In their attempt to reduce the number of deaths resulting from house fires, the Civil Defence heads have also gathered the nation's debut nationwide fire safety code.

Up till today, Major Gen Rashid al Matrooshi, the acting director of the Civil Defence, used to be of the opinion that every emirate has used its own code. He revealed that some of them would be based on the British model, while some on the American.

The consequence, clarified by the figures released yesterday, showed a broad gap between emirates. Last year, Dubai had had only 42 house fires, while both Abu Dhabi city and Sharjah had 89 and 100 house fires respectively, twice as many the numbers.