How To Make a Fire Escape Plan for Your Family

4/12/2021 (Permalink)

While all buildings need to have a fire escape plan, the most important place to prepare for is your home.

Being prepared in case of a fire is one of the best things you can do to keep your family safe. Smoke detectors, fire alarms and escape plans are all crucial steps to prepare for an accidental fire in your home. While all buildings need to have a fire escape plan, the most important place to prepare for is your home, especially if you’re living with young children. Everyone should be on the same page in terms of your escape route.

Reacting to the Fire

In an intense situation like a fire, it is important to act quickly and follow certain protocol. The first step in any fire escape plan is deciding how to react when a smoke alarm goes off or a fire is spotted. Within only minutes, a small flame can become a widespread fire so it is important that everyone knows how to keep themselves safe.

When exiting the building, it is important to drop to the floor to avoid the smoke that is rising. When moving around, keep low and crawl to the primary fire exit and try to keep your face covered with any clothing or piece of cloth. If any handle is hot, it is not safe to enter the room. Even though the official safety recommendation is to exit the building on your own as soon as possible, every parent is going to save their child, so it is important to factor that into your escape plan. Once you are outside, do not reenter the building under any circumstance.

Mapping Your Escape

After setting the expectations during an emergency, it is important to map out the route you and your loved ones can take. Print out a full layout of your home and make a note where everyone sleeps and where all possible exits are. With this information, you can draw out the primary exits, which are the quickest options, everyone can take and the secondary exists if those are blocked. Make sure that everyone is aware of every the exists, including windows.

Meeting Up

It is very important to choose one spot that everyone will safely meet up with when outside. If everyone is in the same place. This will make it easy to see if everyone has made outside and prevent anyone from unnecessarily running back into the building. A good choice for this location is a tree sear the side of the road at the end of the driveway with an unobstructed view of the house. Make sure every child and adult is aware of where this meeting point is located. As soon as you reach this meeting point, call 911 for help.

Rehearsing Your Fire Escape Plan

In order to be best prepared in case of an emergency, it is important to rehearse your family’s fire escape plan. After first hearing the smoke detector, everyone’s should be focused on safely heading to the meeting place. You should check your smoke detector batteries every month, and this is a great time to go over your fire safety plan. Especially for children, reiteration is very important.  Making a fire plan is easy and in case of an emergency, can save lives.