Does your family have a fire escape plan?

Question

Two weeks ago I woke up at 3 am to some people screaming outside of my house. I peeked out the window to see the house across the stress from me in flames. There was only 1 man that lived there with 4 of his dogs and everyone got out safely except for one dog. I see this man’s house every day and it breaks my heart. And I can’t get out of my mind that if those two punk kids weren’t walking by at that hour, this man MAY have died in the fire. He very well could have died. They most likely saved his life….

So of course, since we have a 2 yr old in the house, my mind has been going crazy. I couldn’t sleep the other night because our smoke detector isn’t hooked up. Because it goes off every 2 seconds with even the slightest of smoke (or burnt toast). And of course now since seeing that fire, it has me freaked out. Seeing how quickly the fire in this man’s house spread and how little smoke it takes to cause breathing problems, I told my husband to hook up the smoke alarm immediately. And it got me thinking…

How many of you check the batteries in your alarms like you’re supposed to? How many of you have working alarms? Do you check them? Have you discussed family safety in the event a fire was to take place? Escape routes for your kids? Meeting points?

I know I’m very guilty and don’t do any of this. But since the fire across the street, you better believe I’ll be more aware. It could happen to any one of us!

So I’m curious about other families….your thoughts?

Answer 1

I have three kids, ages 15,10,6.  The kids have all been told to get out of the house if there is a fire, and we have a meeting point "the tree across the street".  I disconnected one fire alarm that went off every time I cooked, but all the others (one in each room) are still connected so I feel they will be enough to warn us of a fire.  My alarms are hard wired, so when the battery needs to be changed it beeps every so often (usually at 4am) so that you have to change it.  They say change your clocks change your batteries, I guess if you are not wired that is the best thing to do.

Answer 2

I went through something VERY similar. Someone in my daughters kindergarten class had their house start on fire in their sleep. Luckily everyone (even the dog) made it out safely. But, they lost EVERYTHING! It was so sad.

That was the time I realized how seriously of an issue this is. The school had a firefighter come one night and talk to all the children and parents. We got all the information we needed that night. From then I:

- test smoke alarms once a month

- have drills at least 4 times a year (although we aim for more)

- plan an escape route

- understand the danger of smoke (they learn to crawl when leaving the house, stuffing cracks of doors if stuck in a room, etc)

- have a safe meeting spot

- exit safely out a window (throw blankets out the window, climb and then hang out the window, then drop feet first)

- fire extinguisher under the sink and in the garage

This website is has great tips:

http://www.gocolumbiamo.com/Fire/Educati...

Answer 3

well i;m seventeen and yes, my family did do all of those things when i was younger at least. we made a safe meeting spot [the mailbox of our neighbor], and changed our smoke detector batteries when needed, because if you didn't it would beep like once every five minutes, which was quite annoying but proved to be a great reminder. i think that taking all of these habits are very important factors in keeping your family safe, since my dad was a volunteer fire fighter and i've heard many horrifying stories from him and the fellow fire fighters in his station.  

Answer 4

Seriously, you don't have smoke alarms? No escape plan?

We check our batteries every six month when daylight savings begins/ends. We have practice escapes too. Our older children have drawn escape plans. All of us practice two ways out of every room.

This is pretty basic stuff. What other ways are you risking the lives of your family members?

Do you have a carbon monoxide detector?

Answer 5

We check all of our smoke detectors every time we put our clocks forward or back (daylight savings time).  It's become a routine (it's actually part of the ads on tv for changing your clocks in New Zealand).  

We set up a fire escape plan when we first started having kids.  When we check the alarms, I remind the kids.  Nothing fancy, just the basics.  When the kids were younger, we practiced it once in awhile, and we probably should do that again!  We also practiced crawling through the house with our eyes closed (because if there's smoke you have to crawl and the smoke is so irritating you often have to close eyes) to measure out where doors and other bedrooms are. We practiced feeling our bedroom door for heat, stop drop and roll, etc.

We have 6 smoke detectors in our home (fairly large home).  If you have a smoke detector that keeps going off with cooking, then it's probably too close to the kitchen.  You should have one in your living areas (if they're not connected to the kitchen) and either in each bedroom or in a small hallway the bedrooms come off of.  Smoke detectors are not expensive, they're easy to attach to the ceiling and they save lives.  Other than being safe with cooking and matches/candles- they're the number one saver of lives!

Go ahead and get that smoke detector in place-probably more than 1!  It'll give you peace of mind and could save you and your family's life!  Chances are you'll never have to live through a fire-but fire safety is something everyone should know!

God bless you!  Hope you can get everything sorted out soon!

Answer 6

We have a plan but (for shame) have never practiced it.  

I live in a small apartment on the third floor, we have 3 exits but none of them are on the ground level (2 balconies and 1 door leading to a staircase outside).  The plan is grab the first cat you see (we keep a bag of treats by the door to shake in case we need it) and head to the exits. Obvious choice is the one leading to a stair case, but if we can't use it, either balcony will do until the fire dept shows up to rescue us from it (in a dire emergency we could jump off one and land on grass, the other is asphelt).  Alert the neighbors as soon as we get out so they can save their kids.  We meet across the street.

The smoke detector is hooked up to the electricity so we don't have to check batteries.  I was worried about that detector because if the electricity is out because of the fire, it won't go off...but the Fire Chief was here one day doing a random check and he assured me it'd go off before the electricity died.  I have a battery operated detector just in case, and 2 fire extinguishers in my kitchen.

Answer 7

Yes we do. We have 4 kids and we have done fire drills so each kid knows what to do and we have a meeting place outside the house. We go over it once a month so they don't forget.

We also bought new smoke detectors. I saw a news piece where they tested to see if the regular beeping smoke detectors would wake up children. They did it on a few different families and the results were shocking. Children do not wake up to smoke detectors.

you can watch the story here

http://www.zippyvideos.com/1078126126616...

There is a different type of alarm you can buy now where you record your voice yelling for them to wake up and get out. You can record whatever message you want. We bought two of them and then we tested the kids and they woke up to my voice yelling to them!! I feel a lot better knowing for sure my kids will hear the detector and wake up.

Here is a link to the detector if you're interested.

http://www.amazon.com/Kid-Smart-10012VSD...

Answer 8

I don't have a fire escape plan either. My family really never thought of it. We have a one month old on Saturday and we will be making the fire escape plan very soon. but we do have working smoke detector in every room except the ones by the kitchen and bathroom(stem from the shower sets it off) I took the batteries out of those two. We have also have a carbon monoxide detector in the house. Every since I was 15 and at a party when the cops and fire department showed up across the street because their carbon monoxide detector went of i always vowed to have one in my home. SO that has the #1 purchase we bought when we moved in.  

Answer 9

We check the batteries every few months and check to make sure they are working all the time. We have 3 alarms and one of those alarms are a Co2 detector and smoke detector combined. We have several escape routes for different scenarios and we have a different meeting place when a certain scenario comes up. You are right you can never be too safe and it could happen to anyone!  

Answer 10

sadly we don't have an escape plan and my  husband is a fireman!!! i know! we need to do that, especially with a baby on the way.

Answer 11

We do everything except for having meeting points - it's a small village, it would be kinda obvious where people were.

If you get a slightly more expensive smoke alarm, they often have a "quiet" button that you can press when cooking so it won't go off, just pips at you for ten minutes before going back to being on. It's far safer than taking the batteries out, because you can't forget to reset it.