Fire safety and exceptional situations in rental apartment
Safety is a basic quality of a good home, and we can all make an effort to achieve it. Easy ways to do it is by staying vigilant about aberrant things in our environment, getting to know our neighbours, and taking care of fire and cyber safety.
Safety is a right and obligation of all of us. An emergency plan has been drawn up for every SATO building, including yours. Make sure you read it to prepare yourself for a variety of situations that may take place in and outside your home. We keep the emergency plans up to date so we recommend that you take a look at yours at regular intervals.
The emergency plan of more and more SATO buildings is now available online. To find your building's emergency plan, enter your street address on Contact us -page. You will find a link to the emergency plan under Building information.
If the emergency plan for your building is not yet available online and you have not seen the plan on paper, contact your building manager for a copy of the plan. The building manager is obliged to distribute the emergency plan on paper to all the apartments in the building.
Take good care of the fire safety of your home
- Your home must by law have a smoke alarm. Under law, you are responsible for getting one and testing and replacing the batteries. If you are asleep when there is a fire, the alarm gives you 2–3 extra minutes to escape from the apartment.
Please note that as of 1 January 2026, the responsibility for acquiring and maintaining smoke alarms will transfer to the building owner. After this legislative change, you will still be responsible for regularly testing the smoke alarm and reporting any faults. - Install the smoke alarms in the middle of the ceiling in each room (excluding kitchen and bathroom). One alarm for each 60 sqm of floor space is enough. Test the smoke alarms regularly: make testing them a new routine task alongside cleaning.
- Keep the cooker and its surroundings tidy. Never store anything on top of the cooker. If you have children or pets, you should get a knob cover preventing the cooktop or oven being turned on accidentally.
- Place all light fittings safely: make sure lamps cannot fall onto items such as a sofa or bed. Be extra careful with halogen lights that can get very hot.
- Only use the sauna for bathing. Never store any non-sauna items or dry laundry in the sauna. If the sauna stove switches on due to a technical fault or other reason, the consequences may be lethal if there are materials that may catch fire near the stove.
- Make sure you put candles in safe places where they cannot fall over. Never leave a burning candle unattended. Outdoor candles or torches must not be burnt on the balcony, and smoking is only permitted in areas designated by your building’s rules.
Electric power cut upcoming? Here's how to prepare.
Take good care of the cyber security of your home
In many rental apartments there may (acquired usually by the resident themself) be so called IoT appliances that converse happily together via the Internet of Things. We recommend a healthy amount of care with the information security when using such appliances. Here are few tips:
- Always connect the IoT appliances from the local network to a separate guest network.
- Keep up with the updates of all your devices attached to said network (incl. computers, tablets, smartphones and other smart devices.
- Make sure your IoT appliances are secured and do change the default password when possible.
- Do favour known and trusted brands when choosing your appliances and devices.
- Install an information security software for your computer, tablet and smartphone.
- Use all appliances and devices connected to any network wisely and with care.
Public warning signal and air-raid shelters
If the population needs to quickly take shelter from an imminent danger, the authorities will issue a public warning signal. If the authorities have declared emergency conditions, the public warning signal means you should immediately take shelter in the air-raid shelter.
If your home building has an air-raid shelter, SATO will take care of its equipment, functionality, and supplies. When the authorities issue an order to activate the shelters, residents are responsible for clearing the shelter and preparing it for use. According to the law, the air-raid shelter must be operational within 72 hours of the authority’s order.
You can find more information about safety, air-raid shelters, and preparedness in the shelter guide below, in your home building’s emergency plan and on the Finnish National Rescue Association’s (SPEK) website.