Fire Escape Plan

When fire strikes you may have a s little as one to two minutes to escape. That’s why it’s so important to have a well-rehearsed escape plan. I’d like to take a few minutes to walk you through the steps you need to prepare a fire escape plan for your home or apartment. A great way to get started is to draw a floor plan of your home. An upstairs and downstairs. You need to have two ways to exit each room, that way, if a fire blocks one exit, you can escape the other way. The first exit woul dbe the easiest, such as a bedroom door. The second window or a fire escape. If your bedrooms are on a second floor, you should purchase a fire escape ladder. Practice using this ladder from a first floor window, to make sure you can do it quickly. Now let’s draw a plan for this particular bedroom. On the floor plan mark the primary escape route, the bedroom door, with an arrow. Then, mark the secondary exit, the bedroom window, with a number 2 showing that this is the route to take when the first one is unsafe.

Once you prepare the escape plan, you should designate a meeting place where all family members should go immediately after escaping .THis meeting place should be a safe distance from your home and you should mark it on your escape plan. At the meeting place everyone can be accounted for. Then, one person can go to a neighbor’s home and call the fire department. After you’ve developed your plan, you must practice it with every family member. Practice it at least twice a year so you’ll be ready in an emergency. From exiting each room, to meeting in an assigned meeting place, every family member should know what to do.

So let’s see if you know what to do if a fire happened in your home. if you are awaken by a smoke detector and sense a fire, do not jump out of bed. Since the heat gets more intense farther from the floor, roll out of bed onto the floor. Your bedroom doors should always be closed while you are sleeping since the door acts as an insulator from the fire.

Touch the door with the back of you rhand, both low and higher up, to see if it’s warm. If it is, don’t open it since there may be a fire on the other side. Use the alternate route on your escape plan. If the door is not warm to the touch, open it oen to two inches, bracing it firmly since their may be pressure from gases on the other side. If the air from behind it is warm, do not use the hallways, pull the door shut and use an alternate escape.

You should always try the second exit when you encounter smoke when eseaping from a fire. But if you need to get through smoke to get outside, here’s an important thing to remember about smoke and fire. At knee height, the temperature in a fire may be about 90 degrees. At shoulder height, a burning fire can be as hot as 690 degrees.

When escaping, always stay as close to the floor as possible in a crawling position. If you need to crawl to safety, keep your head about one to two feet above the lfoor. Once you’re safely outside, go to your pre-arranged meeting place. Don’t waste time calling the fire department from inside the house. Do this after your saely outside, and never go back into a burning building.

Whether you live in a house or an apartment, you need to prepare yourself. For those that live in an apartment, there are additional safety precautions yo ushould take. You should know the stairway or fire exits outside yoru apartment building. Never use the elevator during a fire. It could break down or bring you right to the source of the fire. Always use the stairs in a fire emergency. In some cases the safest action when a fire alarm sounds may be to stay inside your apartment and protect yourself from smoke until the fire department arrives.

You can seal all doors and vents with duct tape or towels to prevent smoke from entering the room. Let fresh air int he room by opening a window at the top and bottom. Callt he fire department and let them know that you’re still inside.

We never like to think that a fire could happen in our home. But by developing a fire escape plan, you’ll be prepared to handle a fire emergency