Fire accidents in homes have been noticed to be as a result of lack of knowledge of the risk factors and the preventive practices. This study determined the knowledge of the risk factors and preventive practices among residents of Tanke community in Ilorin, Nigeria towards domestic fire accident. The current study was also done to determine the prevalence of domestic fire accidents in Tanke with a view to determine the education needs of the people. A total of 500 respondents were randomly selected for this study. Heads of households chosen from a cluster of houses in Tanke community were interviewed using structured questionnaire. 55.5% of households had knowledge of the risk factors and 81% had knowledge of the preventive practices towards domestic fire accidents and the prevalence rate was 13.6%. The risk factors of domestic fire accident include carelessness, leaving cooking appliances unattended, faulty electrical appliances, smoking cigarettes, failure to switch off electrical devices when not in use, alcoholism amongst others. The preventive practices towards fire outbreak at home and fire hazard preventions include installation of smoke detectors, owning fire extinguishers, taking precautionary measures, turning off all cooking appliances after use among others. A large proportion of the respondents did not have fire accident preventive devices like fire extinguisher and smoke detectors at home. Most of the respondents had factors that could predispose them to domestic fire accident like keeping flammable substances at home, smoking carelessness and faulty electrical appliances. Recommendation for the study included: intensification of fire prevention programs, enforcement of fire laws that mandates the adoption of fire preventive devices in all homes and health education aimed at knowing the risk factors of domestic fire accidents and its prevention which is of utmost importance in our fight against the devastating trauma of fire injuries in homes.

Keywords : Accident, Domestic Fire, Fire Hazard, Prevalence, Risk Factors, Preventive Practices, Fire Extinguishers, Smoke Detector, Electrical Appliances.