You don’t expect to get yanked from a peaceful sleep by the sound of a fire alarm blaring. You hope it never happens, but if it does, having a plan to fall back on could literally save your family’s lives. When you’re developing a home fire escape plan, it’s helpful to divide your planning process into three stages: defense, escape procedures and practice. Once you have your plan in place, you need to review it periodically and update anything that has changed or didn’t work during practice. Click here for the Best-Selling Fire Safety Products.
Home Fire Defense: Smoke Detectors
One of the best ways to defend your family against the dangers of a home fire is to get good smoke detector coverage throughout your home. You should have a smoke detector located in each of these areas:
In each bedroom Outside sleeping areas (in a connecting hall, for example) On each level of the house without sleeping areas, including basements.
Be sure to test your smoke alarms from time to time. If you’re using a model with a 9-volt battery, change the battery once a year. Feel free to put the used 9-volt batteries into other electronics that your life doesn’t depend on. They may still be good, but changing the batteries out helps prevent them from dying when you need them most.
You can also find smoke detector models that have a 10-year lithium battery. Others can be hardwired into your electricity. If you have one of these models, test the alarm every six months to ensure it’s getting power.
A good rule of thumb to help you remember to change or test your smoke detector batteries is to follow Daylight Savings Time. When you change your clocks for Daylight Savings Time, check your smoke detectors. Ensuring that your smoke detectors work is a vital part of your home fire plan.
Tips for Installing Smoke Alarms
Smoke detector alarms save lives, but only if you have them installed the right way. Here are some tips for making sure your smoke alarms will work when you need them:
Tip 1: If possible, get smoke alarms that can be interconnected so that when one is triggered, they all go off. This helps ensure that heavy sleepers don’t sleep through an alarm going off on the other side of the house.
Tip 2: Since smoke rises, you want your smoke alarms up high. If you install a smoke alarm on the wall, it should be between 4-12 inches from the ceiling. If you install it on the ceiling, keep it about four inches from the wall. If you have a ceiling with a peak, place the alarm within three feet of the peak but at least four inches down from the apex, or top point.
Tip 3: Keep your smoke detector out of drafts that can move the smoke away before it gets detected. This means that it shouldn’t be near doors, windows or duct openings.
Tip 4: Keep everything off your smoke detector. Covering the sensors with stickers, paint, tape, curtains or anything else will keep it from working as it should. Keep in mind that smoke detectors collect dust like anything else, so be sure to dust or vacuum it off periodically.
Home Fire Defense: Escape Aids
In most cases, if there is a fire in your home that can’t be contained quickly, your family needs to get out and get to safety. Depending on your home, you might need to plan ahead with extra tools to help your family get out.
Two-story homes can be a challenge to exit if the fire traps you on the second floor. You can get escape ladders that will give you a chance to climb out of your second-story windows safely. It’s important to store them somewhere that is easy to find in an emergency.
If you have escape ladders, make it a point to practice with them. Start by using them on a first-story window. Make sure all adults and any kids old enough to use the ladder get to practice with it. When everyone is comfortable with the ladder, do some practice runs where at least the adults use the ladder from the second story.
Another useful piece of escape equipment is a quick-release emergency kit for windows with security bars. If you have security bars on your windows, make sure you have installed an emergency release of some kind. Practice so that everyone who is capable of using it knows how.
Escape Procedures
Another important step you can take to keep your family safe in case of a fire is to teach them what to do if a fire happens.
First, the adults in the family need to formulate a plan. Start by mapping out your house. Identify two exits from every room possible. In particular, make sure you have two ways to exit bedrooms and living areas where your family spends most of their time.
Walk through your home and test each of your exits. Look for anything that might slow you down. Ask yourself these questions and make a list of any problems that need to be fixed:
Do the doors and windows open easily? Is anything blocking your way to get to your exit points? Is there any obstacle outside your exit point that might block it or make it hard to get out quickly? If an exit point is above ground level, do you have a way to get down?
Decide on a few different meeting points where your family can find each other once you exit your house. At a minimum, have one at the front of the house and one at the back of the house. This ensures that you’ll all know where to meet up no matter which way you have to leave the house.
Go over the plan with your family. Walk through it to see how well it works and make any adjustments that seem necessary.
Depending on your family’s circumstances, you may need to plan for some specific situations. Make sure you’ve planned for any of the following scenarios that apply to your family.
Getting Babies and Toddlers to Safety
Very young children won’t know how to follow the family home fire escape plan. There’s a good chance they’ll be frightened by the loud noises and commotion. One of the best ways you can protect them is to plan out ahead of time how you’re going to ensure they get out of the house.
In some families, the youngest children are assigned an adult “buddy” who locates them and gets them out in an emergency. In others, each adult takes responsibility for the children in the area of the house they’re in. Many families do a hybrid system. If the fire occurs during the day or any time when the family is in random places around the house, adults make sure the children in their area of the house get out. If the fire happens when everyone’s in bed at night, each adult knows to help specific children.
This is particularly important when children sleep in different bedrooms. The longer it takes anyone to get out of the house, the more danger they’re in. By dividing up the responsibilities for young children, adults can get themselves and the children out of the house faster.
Whatever plan makes sense for your family, make sure that everyone who is old enough to be responsible for younger family members knows what their job is. Discuss alternative plans to use if some family members aren’t home.
Some things to keep in mind when planning for your youngest family members:
Some young children sleep deeply. Test to see if they wake up when the smoke alarm goes off. If not, make sure someone has the responsibility of waking them. (This suggestion can apply to any heavy sleepers, not just children.) Children aren’t always logical, especially when they’re scared. They may try to hide even if they’ve practiced escaping the fire.
Know their hiding places and check those spots if you don’t see the children right away. Children may also be scared of firefighters and try to hide from them. Teach your children to recognize and trust firefighters. Read books, watch videos, and take the opportunity to let your children meet firefighters when possible.
Helping Family Members With Disabilities
If you have anyone in your house who would struggle to escape a fire due to physical or mental disabilities, come up with a plan to help them. They may need their own “buddy” to make sure they can physically get out of the house or to help them understand how to follow the plan.
If they’re unable to walk out on their own, think through how they can get out in different scenarios. Keep in mind that the easiest exits may be blocked, so it’s a good idea to have a couple of back-up plans in mind.
Keeping Pets Safe
For many people, pets are family members as much as people are. Make a plan for helping pets get out. Since many pets are scared of smoke alarms, do a practice run by setting the alarm off and seeing how your pets react. Do they stay calm or freak out? Do they hide in a specific place? If you see them head for a certain hiding place, remember that spot. They’ll probably run back to it the next time the alarm goes off.
In general, plan on having a way to grab your pet even if it’s freaked out. Wrapping your pet in a blanket or putting it in a lidded clothes hamper can work to let you carry it out quickly.
Most importantly, if you can’t get to your pet safely on your way to your exit, be prepared to get yourself and your human family members clear of the fire without delay.
Practice Your Plan
No matter how much time you spend on your home fire escape plan, it won’t work if no one remembers what to do. That’s why practice is so important.
In an actual house fire, you may only have a minute or two to get out of the house. It’s a high-stress situation, and it’s easy for people to panic. By practicing what to do, you can help your family reach the point where their reaction to a fire is automatic and above all, fast.
When you first come up with your plan and teach it to your family, it’s important to practice several times. Go through the plan once or twice slowly, coaching everyone through their roles. Once they all know what to do, set a timer. Aim for getting everyone to safety in under two minutes.
Fire Drill Tips
Tip 1: When you can get everyone to the family meeting spot in less than two minutes, you can space out your fire drills. With younger kids, it’s a good idea to do them somewhat frequently so the kids don’t forget what to do. Aim to do a fire drill anywhere from once a month to once every three months. With older kids or adults, doing a drill twice a year is generally enough to keep everyone aware of how to react in a real fire.
Tip 2: Do an occasional fire drill where you wake the family up with an alarm. This will help you see how different family members react to being woken abruptly. It will also help them practice going through the escape steps even when they’re barely awake. If you have younger kids, it’s fine to let them know a fire drill is coming. They’ll be able to do a more clear-headed practice if they’ve been prepared.
Tip 3: Do an occasional obstructed drill. One type of obstructed drill involves blocking off different exits. Another involves making everyone crawl to the exits like the room is filled with smoke. Practice testing closed doors to see if they’re hot before opening them. Teach your family to adjust quickly when a problem stops them from exiting the way they intended to.
Tip 4: Practice “stop, drop, and roll” in case your clothing catches fire. Teach your family to cover their faces with their hands, drop to the floor and roll side-to-side to put out the flames.
Some Final Thoughts
Home fire escape planning has several different stages. You’ll need to get the tools needed to make sure your family is warned and has the ability to escape if a fire happens. You’ll figure out escape procedures based on the layout of your home and the abilities of your family. And most of all, you’ll practice your plan so that everyone in your family knows what to do when the smoke alarm goes off. The more you prepare, the better your family will be able to react if you’re ever in a fire. Click here for the Best-Selling Fire Safety Products.
Additional Resources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire_safety
https://homesafetydot.com/article-sitemap-1-61cc84/
https://homesafetydot.com/article-sitemap-2-de7bff/
https://homesafetydot.com/article-sitemap-3-eb4e4a/
https://homesafetydot.com/article-sitemap-4-e75eb4/