If you have fire extinguishers in your house, good for you. If you don't, go buy some. They recommend keeping one on each floor of your house. But I find that having several per floor is a better plan. Think of it this way, where are the fires likely to start on a given floor. Put fire extinguishers near all of these places. If you have only one per floor, it's not hard to imagine a scenario in which you can't get to the fire extinguisher because the fire is blocking your path to it. This is to be avoided!

If you are like most people, you'll end up buying what's called an A/B/C fire extinguisher. This means that it works on common flammable materials like paper and wood (A), flammable liquids like grease, oil, and gas (B), and can be used on electrical components like computers and TVs (C). These fire extinguishers almost always make use of dry chemical components as an extinguishing agent.

At least once a year (or as often as the manufacturer recommends), you should check your extinguishers to make sure that the pressure is still in the allowable range. But here's the thing they don't tell you. If you have a dry chemical fire extinguisher (and this is by for the most common agent used in home fire extinguishers), the material can get kind of clumpy over time. So when you check the pressure on your fire extinguisher, also pick it up and shake it. This will loosen up the dry chemical agent inside the extinguisher.

If you ever need to use a fire extinguisher and it's using a dry chemical agent, given the extinguisher a couple of good shakes before you start using it. It'll be hard to remember this since you'll be all pumped up by the fact that something is on fire. But if you forget and the extinguisher is not working well, remember then to shake... better late then never.