Fire Safety Tips For Families

It's 3 o'clock in the morning and your fire alarm starts to beep.  You wake up and smell smoke.  What is the first thing you should do?  Is your family prepared? When is the last time you held a family fire drill?  Have you ever held a fire drill?  Have you planned your escape route in the event of a fire?  Why not?

Fires tend to peak during the months of December, January and February which are usually the coldest months of the year.  Home structure fires are reported about every 85 seconds nationally.  Did you know that approximately 3,500 people are killed in fires each year?  How many of these deaths could have been prevented had they practiced a fire drill or had a prepared fire escape route?  If you and your family practice drills ahead of time, your family's reaction time will decrease exponentially and every second counts!

When planning a fire escape route for your family, keep the following checklist in mind:

• One of the most important things you can do, is to make sure there are working smoke alarms in each room, and working carbon monoxide detectors on each level of a home.
• Make sure all smoke alarms are less than 10 years old, and are tested on a regular basis.
• Test the alarms during the night and see if your child responds.  Some children do not react to the beeping of a smoke alarm.  If this is your child, invest in a talking alarm that says something like, "Fire! Get up!".
• Draw a floor plan of your dwelling and mark at least two exits out of every room.
• Gather the family and review the floor plan and physically walk through the escape route with each child.  Make sure each child has a thorough understanding of what to do in the case of a fire.
• If you have multiple children sharing a room, assign partners to insure each other's safety.
• Teach everyone to touch the door and knob before opening it, to see if they feel hot to the touch.  If they feel warm, use the alternate exit route if possible.
• Ensure that everyone knows how to stuff blankets, sheets or clothes into the cracks of the doors and vents, if trapped in a room.  Also, make sure that they have a flashlight in each room to signal for help if trapped.
• Do not linger in a burning building trying to collect photos, jewelry or family heirlooms. NOTHING is more precious than your life!
• Designate an outside meeting place that everyone is familiar with.  Each family member should stay at the meeting place until everyone has escaped.  Some examples of meeting places might be a mailbox, the neighbor's house, a nearby corner, etc.
• Make sure that all of the designated exit routes are easily accessible.
• Make sure that your dwelling number is clearly visible for firefighters and all first responders.
• No one should ever try to re-enter a burning building for any reason.  Stay outside and alert the first responders where you think a trapped person or animal may be.  

Finally, it is crucial that home fire escape drills are practiced at least twice a year. The more you practice, the less panicked everyone will be when faced with a fire.

No one plans for a fire, but the better prepared you are when one occurs, the better your chances are of getting out alive.

Remember - "If You Fail to Prepare, then Prepare to Fail!"